Your Daily Polyamory Blog for Navigating Life, Relationships, and More
Justin’s in the kitchen, sitting on the floor. Messing with our shoes. He looks like he’s organizing them on the rack next to the back door. He looks up at me. “Hi sweetie.”
“Hi,” I choke out, my greeting barely audible over the Electric Light Orchestra spilling out of the speaker. I dart back to the living room. » Read more
I’ve been on a cleaning frenzy lately. I recently implemented a new chore list which guides me through most of the motions. Makes keeping things up routine and automatic. Mostly anyway. Sometimes I have to be more intentional.
For example, going by the list, each Friday’s big chore is always miscellaneous. » Read more
In spite of the fact that we haven’t seen each other in years, I still think about my therapist Sue every now and then.
On the surface, we shouldn’t have worked well together therapeutically. Because we didn’t have much in common. She was a mild-mannered person with Biblical verse plaques sprinkled on the walls of her office. » Read more
A lot of people involuntarily cringe when you use the word “deserve,” regardless of context. Because the way most people talk about who’s deserving and who isn’t, there’s a deterministic bent to it, an underlying belief that some of us are born into this world entitled to happiness and prosperity. And others aren’t. Usually this is predicated on factors beyond our control: How rich our parents are, » Read more
Joke: “How do you punish a masochist?”
My answer: “Ignore them.”
Attention Is a Powerful Motivator
It’s something that experts advise new parents: Punishment can backfire if done too much or done the wrong way. Scolding or hitting tends to be particularly ineffective. Even if addressing a child’s behavior directly these ways is intended as punishment, » Read more
Video games have been a constant presence in my life for basically as long as I can remember. There are a multitude of people that I wouldn’t know at all if it weren’t for my love of video games, like the guildies I met back in the days when I essentially lived inside MMORPGs.
And there are still others who I would have known but wouldn’t have been nearly as close to, » Read more
Whenever he buys me ramen, he always picks up the fancy kind. Well, half-fancy is probably closer to the truth. It’s still instant ramen. Just not the kind with the single brick of noodles and the foil packet of flavored salt. But the kind that has four packets inside.
The trusty foil packet is there of course. » Read more
He walks through the door. A little earlier than I thought. Perhaps 15 minutes before I expected him.
I’m happy to see him, but I’m also mortified. Because he’s caught me just as I’m coming out of the shower. I suppose I’m technically dressed, but not really. Wearing an odd assemblage of clothes (one of my “hobo outfits”) on the way to changing into what I’m actually going to wear. » Read more
“Just not in the best mood today,” he warns me.
And it’s not hard to see why. He hasn’t felt well for quite some time, but it’s been tough to get answers. Shuffling from one doctor to the next. Stuck in that purgatory where you’re sick enough to have it chip away at your quality of life, » Read more
Jealousy is in some measure just and reasonable, since it merely aims at keeping something that belongs to us or we think belongs to us, whereas envy is a frenzy that cannot bear anything that belongs to others.
-Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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I was alone a lot when I was growing up. » Read more
