The place where lost socks go...

Warning: People from the Chicago area polyamorous community who wish to avoid knowledge of any private conflict should not click on the following link. This post was not being written to start a public conflict, it was written to bear witness to horrific events and to prevent them from being forgotten. However, if you feel that you may enter a public conflict by reading this, then you should not do so.

( One year ago, right now, all hell was about to break loose in Boston )

[Still haven't posted about Congenial. These damn headers won't go away until I do. It's like shareware.]

In the wee hours of this morning, I realized something. Something that I learned a very long time ago, in a Daredevil comic, I think. Something that I had forgotten in recent days. What I realized is that there is one easy way to end a fight: Stop fighting. Thus, I was able to stop the pyschotic melodrama from emulating cosmology and expanding at an accelerated rate. The best way to stop the melodrama, at least for me, was to disentangle myself from it. And that is precisely what I did. Does that resolve anything? Not really. But nothing was getting resolved anyway. Implementing this plan took some help from a wonderful person who has marvelous communication skills, and once it was done, I felt a lot better.

With the rain gone, I could see much more clearly. I was able to focus on work more than I have in weeks -- since even before the dark clouds of the shitstorm appeared on the horizon. Getting good work done always feels satisfying, since I love the heck out of my job. Having emerged from the fog, I was able to better see and appreciated all the good things that have been happening this week, and there have been a lot of them.

For instance, cheshcat's car was recovered on Monday night. Looks like it was taken by some joyriders, rather than driven to Mexico or brought to a chopshop. The official word from the mechanic has not come in yet, but it seems like Lucretia is in pretty good shape, all things considered. Heck, cheshcat was able to drive it to the mechanic herself, albeit using a screwdriver to turn on the broken ignition control. In addition to the car itself being in relatively good shape, it seems as if almost all of our things were still inside, including the Catbus that I brought back from my first trip to Japan. I wonder at the thieves, who left candybar wrappers and fast food containers all over the car and decided to steal the radio -- even though we have the faceplate. A much more complete accounting of the car recovery can be found here. Assuming that it does not cost too much to repair Lucretia, we're not quite sure yet what we are going to do, as we will then have three cars for the two of us. But we can figure that out later; there are worse problems than having one car too many. I really had figured that we were never going to see Lucretia again. Instead, this was about the best that we could hope for after she was taken.

So, yes, good news abounds. Got my tax return from the accountant today and, for the first time in my life, I do not owe money. Owning a house came in very handy there. Really odd to just sign and mail the things w/o making out a check...

Oh, and I finally have a copy of A Boy and His Frog! I've been trying to get my hands on that for awhile! I'm very happy to have a song that makes me very sad. Go figure...

In still other news, I am getting psyched up for my big three-oh party this weekend. In fact, in less than seventy-two hours, resourceress, The Moof, and cheshcat will all be back in town. Yay!

And there is one more piece of good news -- probably the biggest one of all. But I can't say anything about it, as it is not my news to tell. So y'all will just have to wait until the person it happened to writes about it on their own journal.

Congenial was very good. So good that it will need to be described in its own post tomorrow, when I am not so sleepy. One of the many good things about spending the weekend at Congenial was that, for two days, I got to escape from the budding psychodrama that had been unfolding. Unfortunately, while I was away, the drama mushroomed to ever-greater proportions.

Honestly, I thought that I was done with this insanity half a year ago. But no, same shit hitting the same fan. If anything about it has changed, it is that the psychodrama has become more juvenile. I swear, I have not dealt with this sort of thing since seventh or eight grade. It had not been missed.

From where I sit, I can see five relationships that are in immanent danger of being dissolved. I suspect that at least three of them will be. Hopefully that will be enough to break this accursed cycle, because there is nothing at all positive or life-affirming about it. It's only a waste of precious time and energy. I want out.

Thursday in a nutshell:

Started off by going back to the dentist for a scaling in the right side of my mouth. The whole experience was overwhelmingly positive... mainly because it didn't hurt. It seems like a dentist will never tell you when something is going to be painful, so I've stopped believing claims of painlessness. This time, however, was pretty darn close. Sure, the right side of my mouth was numb for four hours afterwards, making speech awkward, but that's okay. Really! And now I'm much less apprehensive about going in next week to do scaling on the left side.

Following the dental visit was a session of productivity, getting both work and busywork accomplished. Due to my inability to speak clearly, I worked from home and, thus, had the pleasure of seeing little furballs every time I left the office. Often, I would go into the bedroom and see various pairs (or triads) of kittens cuddled up together; each time it made me so glad that we decided to keep an entire litter. There is really such a strong bond between these cats, as they have been together every single day of their lives. And they act like such siblings, too: Quickly going from a mutual licking session to a fight back to cuddling. In case I haven't mentioned it before, Nona has a crush on Totoro (the one cat currently here who is not from the litter). She follows him around, sits where he sits, and generally begs for attention. Totoro is not an ideal boyfriend; he would rather be left alone and frequently hits her when she gets in his face.

In the evening, I went out to the monthly Poly Karaoke gathering at Sidekick's. As usual, much fun was to be had. There was a pretty good turnout, eleven people, so there was good conversations to be had. The music was a little late in starting -- it didn't get going until nearly 9pm -- but once it did, there were many good singers in the crowd, making life a little easier on the ears (not that I'm one to complain!). Angie had brought a caseload of karaoke CDs, so the selection was a little wider than the usual Sidekick's fare. I sang five times, splitting my selections between some old songs and some that I had never done before.

So the day started off good and got better... for a while. Unfortunately, it did not end all that well. It seems that the ghost of psychodramas past may be rearing its ugly head. I'm not going to go into details here, but I did spend about three hours, once I returned home last night, attempting damage control on multiple fronts. Feh. I hate psychodrama -- outgrew the stuff by the time I was seventeen. Hopefully it will die down on its own, rather than flare up into something worse. I'll keep fingers crossed.

In about two hours, polyfrog and I are heading up to Wisconsin for Congenial. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect from this so-called "relax-a-con", but it should be interesting. Looking forward to it...

Following up on my Oct 12 journal entry, here are some details from last weekend's gathering:

As ever, there was far too much to do to get to all of it. This was demonstrated well by lykios, who was attending for the first time and only slept for eleven hours during the three day weekend. To free up time for other activities, I passed on some of my usual events. For instance, I did not attend the opening ceremony for Aphrodite's Temple, nor did I go to the Bardic Circle this year. I also made the difficult decision that I needed sleep on Sunday morning more than I needed another Middle Pillar ritual.

Instead, I took part in some new activities, like my first attempts at poi (no fire yet!) and tinsmithing (where I built a candleholder). I presented part two in my popular "Physics for Pagans" series with a Q&A discussion session on Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays. And I helped cheshcat, who stepped up to facilitate the annual Bi/Poly Rap.

And, of course, there were plenty of traditional activities that I did not forgo, such as two nights of dancing around the bonfire, participating in ritual, baking in the sauna, walking through the beautiful Ashokan woods, attempting to knock friends off of the infamous "Wiggly Bridge," and canoeing about the pond.

For the most part, this year's main ritual did not do much for me. This is not an uncommon experience for me when taking part in rituals with on the order of one hundred participants. I find it more difficult -- though certainly not impossible -- for ritual leaders to keep the group energy focused coherently with such unwieldy numbers. Toward the end of the ritual, though, things finally came together through some powerful chanting, first within small groups and then finally in one strong melding of all the little groups.

Beyond the actual activities of the weekend, one of the greatest pleasures of this gathering is the people. Unlike some of the summer gatherings that I have attended, this particular gathering is deliberately kept small. So we form a type of community that has over a quarter century of continuity as a whole, and eight years of continuity for me. Even though I do not see most attendees more than once per year, it is a homecoming when we are all together again. There is a strange effect when one returns to the Askokan site -- it never feels like a year has passed by, only a few days or so.

During my walks through the woods, I had time to be introspective... not surprising as Samhain approaches. I thought about the psychodramatic turmoil that has ensued over the past year, and I realized it took place all between one gathering and the next... not much time at all! It gave me perspective on how small those problems --and the relationship that caused them -- were, which is another step on the path to letting it all go (the first step was taken on Sep 9). Of course, even the best communities have their dysfunctions, and there are conflicts with people there that range back nearly a decade now. Everyone had the good sense to keep civil, so there was no trouble at all... but even being in the presence of certain people reminded me that there are animosities running far deeper than anything that I have personally experienced recently.

At the second bonfire, the drums and dancing were directed toward a trance experience. The poi performance took place at this fire, which facilitated the trance experience. I was able to pull my focus strongly inward, allowing me to touch the anger-fire and the pain-fire that I usually keep safely enclosed. I believe that people can feel whatever they like, but we are all responsible for how those feelings manifest as actions. However, to retain one's own humanity, one cannot simply deny, kill off, or build an impenetrable wall around one's darker side. In order to keep a balance, I need to keep that side from overwhelming me but I also need to let it run free at times in appropriate surroundings. The trance fire turned out to be one such environment for this.

Overall, quite a good weekend gathering. At one point resourceress asked me to assign a letter grade to it: I gave it a "B". Last year, which was phenomenal, set the scale for an "A" with very high standards. The shoes of last year were too big to quite fill them, but this year still turned out to be quite a success.

Saturday: Our neighbor has been trying to officially welcome us to the neighborhood since we moved in last November. She finally succeeded. Afterwards, the Moof and I played GO -- our first game in quite some time, and the first game using the full 19x19 board in many months. It was a close game, but he won with 33 points to my 20 points. In the evening, we visited with M&C, who made pizza for dinner.

Sunday: The kittens turned two years old! Wow, time flies. I gave them freshly picked catnip as a birthday present and I took birthday pictures of all four kittens, to compare with the baby pictures from 2002. Then I picked up langs_place and we went to Wisconsin to see Utah Phillips perform. His performance was slightly different than the Friday show, so I got to hear some other pieces, like The Preacher and the Slave. Good stuff! After the show, we got ice cream and sat on the Capitol lawn talking for several hours before heading home at about 2am.

Monday: Slept in, thanks to staying up until 6am Sunday night.

Tuesday: Went to a dedication ceremony for the new Haymarket memorial. The ceremony was pathetic; I can't believe they had a cop on the speaker list, but no Anarchists. One trade union guy spoke, reading the names and trades of each of the Haymarket Martyrs. After the list of what each one was, we yelled out "...AND AN ANARCHIST!" One guy tried to tell me that the Martyrs had been Socialists, not Anarchists. I told him to go read their writings. George Engel's last words before he went to the gallows were, "Hurrah for Anarchy!" What an idiot. Anyway, the memorial is ugly, but not nearly as offensive as the ceremony (or the previous memorials to the cops). After the ceremony, most people left, and us Anarchists hung out for a couple of hours. I climbed the memorial, wondering if the cops would arrest me for it. Wouldn't that be ironic -- arresting Anarchists at the Haymarket? Some pictures from the day can be found here, here, here, and here.

Wednesday: Had a good meeting at work with some of our collaborators from U-Chicago. Made plans for how to progress with my analysis. After work, I went to the monthly Poly Chicago dinner, which was held in the Burbs for once. It was my first Poly Chicago event since July, and it was well attended -- apparently the best attended dinner in months. In short, it was a good and fun evening.

Thursday: Long bike ride. Ouch. See yesterday's entry here.

Today: Had a reasonably productive day at work. Went for another bike ride (more ouch).

Friday afternoon, there was a bike maintenance workshop at the lab. Once again, I was struck by how cool it is to work at the lab, and how different it is from what usually springs to mind when you tell people that you work at a national lab. I brought along my bike and learned a fair bit about how to repair and maintain it. After the workshop, cheshcat picked me up from work, and we went to go see a production of Stephan Sondheim's Into The Woods. I haven't seen this show in many years, and it is one of my favourite musicals. The production that we saw was well done, and we both enjoyed it thoroughly.

( Saturday was an action-packed intense day )

Sunday I drove into the city with cheshcat and we visited the Shedd Aquarium. It's been nearly a year since we last went to an aquarium, and we've never been to the Shedd before. It was a lot of fun, and I particularly enjoyed the dolphin show, the penguins, and the sawfish. Then we came home for food and rest. In a little while, we will leave again to catch an evening showing of Harry Potter. And that will probably wrap up the weekend...

There are two things that I have often said. Neither should be true, but they both seem to be. They are:

#1) Bad things in my life tend to come all bunched together in waves.
#2) Really bad things in my life happen to the people around me, not directly to me.

The last period in my life stretched from September 2001 until March 2002. In that time, here are just some of the things that happened: My city was attacked by terrorists and, although no one I know was killed, several of my friends were in the thick of it (stepping over dead bodies in the street, for instance). My old experiment exploded, causing $30 million of damage and requiring years to fully recover (it hasn't yet). I suffered a renal colic attack (read: kidney stone) and needed surgery to destroy it. My father's house, which we built in the 1980s, was knocked down by the new owners. A war began, with the news reaching me right at a moment where I had let my guard down. A dear friend (only in his late 40s!) suffered a heart attack that nearly killed him and eventually required a transplant that changed his life.

That was a long bad period. Fortunately, there was a much longer lull between bad periods. Unfortunately, that lull ended a little less than a month ago.

In the span of three weeks, I have had to contend with the following challenges: Comrades bashed and beaten by police at Gay Pride. The death of the mother of my primary partner. The death of the cat that another partner lived with for sixteen years. The death of a guinea pig that a close friend had lived with for five years. A family member grappling with a severe anxiety disorder that has disrupted his life. A friend who has suffered from a nervous breakdown. And my air conditioner at home needs to be replaced.

As I said, bad things happen all at once. Also, since several of these problems have had wide repercussions, for a while the cracks in the dam were appearing faster than I could plug them. And, again, the worst thing that has happened to me directly was the air conditioner unit breaking -- a costly annoyance, but eminently fixable.

I said early on that I was not going to use this LJ for whining. Indeed, I find little use in complaining that the universe it not treating you fairly. It doesn't help anything -- when you are handed a problem, the thing to do is to fix it. So lately I have spent quite a bit of time fixing things to the best of my abilities. I mention all these things in aggregate here only for the purpose of chronicling.

Now I will tentatively venture to say that this bad time may be over. There has been nothing new that has gone wrong in about five days now. Given the fast and furious pace that the hits were coming at this month, that may be significant. I'm going to keep fingers crossed, keep picking up the pieces, and we'll see if life isn't about to get much better once again...

Saturday was good. langs_place and I attended the annual Midwest Regional Wobfest, which was held in Chicago this year.

Sunday was not so good. The Queer/Trans Caucus of the Chicagoland Anarchist Network held a feeder march for the local Gay Pride Parade. It was my first Pride parade, and it reminded me why I've always avoided Pride before -- crass commercial assimilation. Gay Pride isn't about Queer activism; it is about corporate sponsorship and a middle-class street party. To make matters worse, there was a homophobic group marching in the parade itself with banners like "Homosexuality is a Sin" and "AIDS is not the disease, it is the cure." When we confronted these bigots, they physically attacked us. We defended ourselves... which resulted in three of our people getting thrown in jail and charged with felonies. How messed up is that?!? We got gay bashed at gay pride!

On the plus side of things, I got to curse Fred Phelps out to his face.

Anyway, if Pride wasn't bad enough, tonight cheshcat found out that her mother had died suddenly and unexpectedly sometime over the weekend. The call came late in the evening, as I was beginning to get ready for bed. Which is why I am still awake at nearly 4am. If you know cheshcat, please go write something nice in her journal.

As I said, this was really not a very good Sunday.

HIGHLIGHT: On Sunday, I "stole" a paddleboat with langs_place and used it to cross a lake. On the other side of the lake, we relaxed in a spa and swimming pool.

HIGHLIGHT: On Wednesday, there was a very interesting colloquium on the Columbia Space Shuttle accident given by Doug Osheroff, a 1996 Nobel Laureate and a member of the accident investigation board. The talk also discussed the future of human spaceflight. Doug, like so many others (myself included) seems less than enthusiastic about the Bush plan to get us back to the moon and to Mars.

HIGHLIGHT: On Thursday evening, langs_place and I went to a local carnival. Rode together on merry-go-round and ferris wheel. Rode solo on gravitron and "mega-drop." There was much eye candy to admire, though Lang did point out that most of the aforementioned eye candy was also jail bait. Still, doesn't hurt to look.

LOWLIGHT: Later Thursday evening, there was a snake slithering across the main road. Given its slow motion and the dark, I noticed it immediately before running the poor thing over. This is the first time, in over ten years of driving, that I have killed anything larger than a bug with my car. Needless to say, the entire thing was very upsetting. I went back and pulled over to confirm that the snake was dead. Then I call cheshcat as soon as I could, so that she could help me do an appropriate ritual for it. This made me feel somewhat better, but I was still really shaken up and sad for the rest of the night.

HIGHLIGHT: In about two hours, I will be heading out to the airport to fly to Arizona, there to spend a three day weekend with cheshcat. It will be good to be in my [other] home, to see Chesh, and to go swimming in the Phoenix summer heat.