The one where I watch Magic Mike

And am mainly disappointed because people at work talked it up and promised me dicks, and then there was like...half of one. Like, even more angry than when I sat through the entirety of Boogie Nights in high school because somebody had told me Mark Wahlberg went full frontal in it. Now-hubby just now: "You mean you didn't even fast-forward it?" Me: "No, I was going to earn that dick."Anyway. Spoiler alert. After almost 3 fucking hours of Burt Reynolds moustache (which is impressive, but hardly panty-moistening all on its own) and fucking Heather Graham on roller skates, it's like...30 seconds of a completely fake plastic dick. Boo.

If I had to rate dick shots, I'd put Jason Segal's from Forgetting Sarah Marshall top.

 
First, because it was pretty unexpected (nobody makes teaser trailers all, "oh my god you're going to see Jason Segal's penis in this movie!"), and second because it's Jason Segal and I would seriously orgasm to death even just seeing him fully clothed somewhere.

Anyway. Magic Mike. There were several hilarious moments where I could make comparisons to Pretty Woman. Such as, he didn't even get a chance to walk back into the bank later and be all like, "boom bank lady remember when you wouldn't give me that loan even though I had my sexy glasses on? Well, now some sugar momma is paying for my stuff and don't you feel sorry for yourself?!"

Also, there was a little break where I had to rant about the differences between men and women in general when it comes to sexytimes; how essentially it all comes down to feelings of entitlement vs. those of sincere appreciation. I'll save you the majority of it and just boil it down to the nutshell version. Me: "Forget all the shirtless tastyness earlier, 'I just want to talk' is the real sploosh moment in this film."

In the end, I spent the majority of the dance routine portions with my hands clasped in my lap just...completely unable to form coherent thought. Now-hubby: "You're funny right now." Me: "I'm not fucking trying to explain it."

Happily Ever After

I stumbled upon a little blog entry on Unicorn Hunters posted to Reddit. (It's in 4 separate parts, link is to the first installment.) For those not in the  know, Unicorn Hunters are a special breed of poly couples. Typically: male(hetero)/female(bi) couples looking for another poly, bi, female that they can both date. I've run into them a few times before, most notably when I was on SLS and advertising myself as a "single" female - this was in a period when Now-hubby wasn't necessarily interested in other partners, I still was, we had talked about this and he was okay with me putting myself out there as such.

In addition to the magical instance of stupid that is Unicorn Hunters,

there are the couples I'll meet and talk to who have fascinating ideas about how they're going to open up their relationships.

 Most of my reactions here can be pinpointed to a particular personality trait.

I'm not saying that the following things won't ever work for anybody. I just find they are the type of idealized crap that invariably the couple will call me back later on all, "bwah this didn't work"

and then I have to put on my, "the fuck did I tell you?" face.

There's probably more than this, but these are the top 3 that are coming to mind right now.

Wanting to know the other person/"let's all be friends with each other"

This is a fantastic idea in theory. It's a great one for people to say they want, because it sounds nice. Which, it does, doesn't it? It sounds really nice.

 
Who doesn't like friends? It implies this image of everybody fucking holding hands around the globe while a white dove of peace soars in the clear blue sky. The ideal is the people your significant other wants to rub genitals with will also turn out to be really awesome people that both of you can get along with. You can avoid the whole awkward primary/secondary discussion, because you'll be too busy hanging out with each other and being cool with everything. Also, you get a chance to sort of "proof" the person your significant other will be spending time with

When Now-hubby and I were in college, we had a group of friends and sexytime partners that was fairly inclusive, so by the time either of us were having sexytimes with somebody, the friendship was already established. If you're not in that type of environment, trying to force it can be unnatural and weird. Especially if your significant other doesn't particularly like the other person you want to be with. Even if they do, you open up an entirely new series of complicated definitions regarding "friendship." What exactly does it all mean? When it comes to this, I'm more a fan of that sitcom-esque parental trope. Who are you going to be with, where are you going to be, and when can I expect you home?

Total and complete honesty at all times

If being open is about being honest with each other, nothing can be better than being honest all the time about everything, right? This is an easy pitfall to get into, because it's the classic misconception that if a certain amount of something is good, than even more of that something must be great! Which is sometimes true, but also sometimes not true.

I'm not advocating lying. That's a completely different shitty thing that people think about open relationships - that they're just a justification for lying. Lying in relationships, regardless of the format, is a shitty thing to do.

However, complete and utter emotional verbal diarrhea is also not the greatest way to go about things, either. This is a good one to find the balance between what you want to know about and what you don't when it comes to your partner's extra curriculars.

"It's just going to be about sex."

Yes, because we all exist in Brian Kinney world where you can have completely anonymous sex with anybody you choose completely at your whim.

 (I mean, yes, that does sound excellent, but it's unrealistic at best out here IRL)

Shark week

Seriously.

Seriously you guys.

This is the only good thing about periods.

 In addition to being sporadically emotional, the following week also includes the following awesome things:

Random food cravings.

Cramping that sometimes makes it difficult to stand up/sit down/hold any comfortable position except this one:

Amounts of blood that will vary between almost none to fucking torrential downpours, with no warning at all or ability to predict which you will spend your day dealing with.

Quite possibly the worst thing, though, is having to deal with the total irrationality that you are both voraciously horny yet almost unable to let people get near you physically because keeping it together mentally is taking all of your energy.

Flowers

I was getting some online just now.

Then these popped up on the main page of FTD.

The way my mind works, I immediately thought of getting some just so I could go out in public and randomly chuck one as hard as I possibly can at somebody. At first they'd be all, "what the fuck?! You just hit me with a rock." but then they would see the incredibly heartfelt and romantic message and be all, "d'aww I can't stay mad at you."

This concludes your foray into the way my mind works sometimes. Curtain closed.

Deafiquette

For those of you not in the know, I work as a sort-of sign language interpreter. I say sort-of, because I'm not technically an interpreter. I work with students who have cognitive disabilities as well as being Deaf, so my job consists of taking classroom content, condensing it into easier to understand tidbits, and then translating those tidbits into ASL (American Sign Language). An actual interpreter would do classroom content to ASL and skip the middle step.

Side note: what is the difference between and interpreter and a translator? Besides the fact that one is spelled -er and the other is -or, although they're phonetically said the same? I'm genuinely curious. Spoken languages are translated (i.e. English into Spanish), but spoken language to Sign is an interpretation. I think I have the beginnings of a very deep discussion about this brewing, but at the risk of sounding too stoned, I'll skip it for now.

I sometimes wonder about the parallels between the job that I do and my particular lifestyle proclivity. I'm not a big fan about making comparisons between cultural minorities. I'm not trying to say that somehow the Deaf experience is similar to mine. I'm just saying that it's cathartic sometimes for me to answer the increasingly stupid questions people ask about deafness, when I can't always answer stupid questions about poly in the same manner.

Munchkinland

Every so often I will wander into straight people land and be all like, "the fuck is this place?"

 Not that I'm surrounded by people who are kinky, poly, queer, what-have-you on a daily basis. Or that if somebody is one of those aforementioned things, I am automatically going to get along with them. I sit through my fair share of conversations with people "in the community" slash "in the scene" slash whatever the fuck hive mind term you want to use to try and justify the idea that we're all supposed to hold hands and sing along all like, "the way you think is amazingly precious."

There's a special faction of straight people land, though, that is entirely baffling for me. This is the place where I call Frisbee "a  friend," as in, "I am going to go camping this weekend with a friend." And then when said people find out that Frisbee is a man, that I'm going camping just with him and not bringing Now-hubby along, they get all, "say whaaaat?"

As in, the idea that I have a friend of the opposite gender and he is my friend and not somebody who started out as Now-hubby's friend and now I am also friends with him sort of by default - that makes these people collectively lose their shit.

Slutty

The German and I were talking a few days ago about the word "slut." It's a word that has quite a bit of meaning behind it, depending on who's saying it and in what context it's being said. I ran across this little blog entry this morning that I thought was pretty interesting.

Here's my favorite quip from it:

There is a difference between being a slut and being a cheater. One is not necessarily the other. I find this difference to be alarmingly important to make distinct. I would never shame someone for being a slut. Well, I don’t think I would necessarily “shame” someone for just about anything, but you get my point. Having sex isn’t a crime and it doesn’t hurt anybody… unless it does. If you are legally allowed to have sex as much as possible with anyone of consenting age and willing mind, what more do you want? You could have an orgy, you could have an open relationship, you could just have an endless string of one night stands. Why commit to someone and then break their heart to get something you could have had before all of that?

Halloweenie

*sigh* What is it about mostly perfect days that inevitably are followed by days that are objectively terrible? This was one of those days where I got insanely angry - mostly at myself - and then had to get over it and get my big girl panties on. (Aside, I really hate the word panties. Let's never use it again in this blog. Agreed? Agreed.)

Besides that, though. The ultimate topic of this entry. You know I have to start off with some a tidal wave of Marshalade.

In about two weeks I will be heading to a Halloween party thrown by a coworker. I've invited both Now-hubby and Frisbee to come along with me, which is on the one hand exciting and nice (I like both of them quite a bit, so being able to be with both of them makes me do happy dances).

 On the other hand abjectly frightening, because you're never quite sure how something like that is going to go. It'll be the first sort of semi-public outing thing where all 3 of us are going to be together and we'll most likely have to do some explaining type stuff about how the whole thing works. We did visit my homelands awhile ago.

 I don't count that as the only people we really interacted with were my mother, who I had told about the whole situation 2 weeks before, and my bestie, who I was just more nervous that she wouldn't like Frisbee. In any case, having these sort of events where you're more or less going in blind to how people might react is almost reminiscent for me like when you get caught with friends in grade school and you'll all be sitting outside the principal's office making sure you have the same story.
Regardless, I now present to you on a sort of related train of thought some of my favorite costume ideas for couples. I have only duos or trios - if you're looking for some awesome ideas for your quad, can't help ya, bro. Also, yes, I'm sure there are tons more. These are just the ones that have sort of tickled my fancy as ideas over the years. Now-hubby and I have never actually pulled any of these off, mostly because we're not much into the whole Halloween thing. Also, yes, I did cheat and totally Googled the trio ideas. *shrugs* I haven't up to this point really had to think about the possibility of doing one, so I got nothing. Although my earlier linkage does make me think Luke, Leia, and Han would be awesome. Or possibly R2, C-3PO and a Jawa. That would be hilarious. I call Jawa, just so I can run around yelling "Utinni" all night. Agreed? Agreed.

Duos:
Saddam Hussein and Satan
Mordecai and Rigby
Principal Scudworth and Mister Butlertron
The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend (your choice if you want to go the more scantily clad way and decide for her once she becomes Dr. Mrs. The Monarch)
Ren and Stimpy
Captain Picard and Wesley Crusher
Pretty much any twosome from Rocco's Modern Life
Henry and June

Trios - I'd go for either 2, 5, 9, or 10.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie
Elmer, Bugs, and Daffy

Double feels

Sometimes things just sort of work out perfectly in a weird way. Right now that includes kitteh cuddles, Sex and the City, Now-hubby coming home from a weekend away soon, and the fact that Feel it All Around was the first song on Pandora just now when I opened it.

(Also the fact that I have plenty of cider still to warm up and pour rum into later tonight. Hooray!)

I'm not necessarily a pessimist, or nihilistic. Sometimes the glass is half full. You know, like when I've just poured the liquor over ice and haven't added the mixer yet. (Seriously, that cider is going to be fucking delicious.) The better term is cynical. Possibly judgmental. It's something I've come more to appreciate about myself. It used to worry me in a way like, "bwah I'm not making any friends because I alienate people." However, my judgey-wudgey ability to read people and my innate disability to put up with other people's bullshit also prevents me from forming friendships or relationships with those who I ultimately wouldn't get along with in the first place. I have plenty of friends who have that "crazy ex" story floating around, and I don't have anything like that. That's a good feels.

A few cards short of a full deck

In various discussions with therapy lady, she would often smack my wrist with the proverbial ruler for using the term "normal" when I talked about things.

 I would sometimes reference it as in, "I react to x situation poorly, I feel as though other people would react in a more normal manner." In which case I would get a friendly reminder about not thinking about things in a such a stark manner. Also a reminder that just because I lived the childhood/young adulthood that I did, there wasn't some actually attainable "normal-ness" that was the polar opposite of my experience.

This took a long time to hammer this idea into my head.

 
For me, normalcy has always been sort of like that Christmas present you relentlessly asked for every year as a kid but never got. You knew it was out there because you could see it every year in the magazine, but you never had any actual experience with it. I'm not saying somehow that if I had just gotten that one Christmas present (mine was always a sterling silver tea set - I look back on it now and have no fucking clue why) that somehow my childhood would have been awesome and I wouldn't have the issues that I do now.

In the end, getting closer to "normal" came in the form of small, yet significant moments. The first one happened with Now-hubby back in college. I was carrying a glass bottle of orange juice back to the dorm, and tripped on an outside step. When the glass shattered, he immediately asked if I was okay. Which must have been even more difficult for him to figure out if I was or not because I burst into tears as soon as he asked. Not because I was actually hurt, but more because it had been a very rare occurrence up to that point to have somebody care more for my well-being than the inconvenience of something being broken.

It also helped to do a lot of self-evaluation and continue on with therapy lady. I think about who I was 5 or so years ago - I haven't been with the same therapy lady that entire time, but I've been working on pretty much the same issues for that space of time. Which...when I say it out loud makes me sound pretty...not sane.

But getting to a point where I can rationally say, "this is making me feel anxious and I feel like I need to change something," or, "what you've just said has pissed me off, and I want to be alone to sort that out in my head," instead of going all, "OMG nothing is ever right and I am fucking going to sit here and hyperventilate about it" is a pretty good feeling.

It gets better

Spoiler alert: not really. You just eventually get thicker skin.

This weekend I had the distinct pleasure to be privy to a statement about how girls make out with other girls for male attention.

These are typically the types of conversations that I sit through all like, "I am trying incredibly hard to not explode with rage right now about how ridiculously stupid what you are saying is."

Either that or make some scathing remark about how funny and correct the person is, although these usually wind up going over the other person's head.

If you're stupid enough to believe that the only reason two girls ever kiss

is because there's some outside vested male interest, you're probably also not the type to pick up on sarcasm.

 
(For those of you not getting the connection on that last link - "vest." Eh? eh?)

Although on the other hand, I find it an amusing thought that I might someday be making out with a girl (as sometimes happens in my life), and men will just sort of appear out of nowhere.

Like they can scent it or something all, "hark! I hear the sound of lady on lady loving occurring!"

We go together like rama lama lama

I got a request yesterday for a session from a man in a relationship. By his account, a very unhappy and sexually frustrating one. tldr: his gf is a fundie Christian who wants to save it for marriage, he's incredibly horny all the time. His words, not mine: "I don't know why I got myself into this situation."

I encounter this every so often with men I know. They're completely unhappy in their relationships for one reason or another (not always a problem with sexytime), and for some reason seem completely confused as to how they've wound up in their specific predicament.

At which point I usually wind up rolling my eyes at them as if to say, "I fucking told you so."

For some reason the men I know are much more vocal about it all, "why me?"

The ladies I know are more the kind to silently sit next to their douche bag husbands at weddings and try to maintain a smile. Which is sadder, in a way, but doesn't stop me from being judgmental about it all the same. It just doesn't make any sense if people are so completely incompatible...eh, that's a rant for another entry.

In the land of dating other people, I also sometimes run into this. I once had a woman laying naked in bed with me (post sexytime) and bust out with, "I was only allowed to do this because my girlfriend cheated on me, so she said I could cheat on her once." I used to struggle internally with whether I was going to sleep with people who were in otherwise monogamous relationships. I'd reject messages from people online who mentioned their girlfriends or wives. Like most things in my little head space, I thought a lot about it. What was the justification for the rejection? What bothered me the most about these other people being in a relationship that they weren't completely honest in?

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I can't be 100% sure in every encounter with someone else that they're not in some sort of monogamous relationship thing that they're lying about. So it wasn't really fair to discount the ones who were at least being honest about lying. In a parallel universe, this would be the epitome of that grade school saying about two wrongs not making a right. In my universe, it equates to some sarcastic bit about not wanting to be right in the first place.