Whoops, I forgot to link to the new column. It's a bit... tart. But you know I only say these things because you laugh.

Also: Since Phil Gramm says only whiners think we're going to have/having a recession, and I don't want to be a whiner... I'm window-shopping online. (Plus, someone who indulges me suggested to me that I should.)

And I really, really want this bronze leather jacket. Doesn't it just say "decadent excess" to you?

Happy Friday - and it's time for another podcast. This time, Monk and I talk about a subject we are eminently qualified to discuss: How to keep your BDSM light and fun. Money quote:
Matisse: Anything a man says to you when he has a hard-on doesn't count.
Monk: That means half of what I've said to you in our relationship doesn't count!

(About ten minutes long, and clearly unsafe for work.)

Oh, man. See, this is why I’m not sure I want to be any more famous than I am. The New York Times ran an article this week about the fact that all links and references to sex writer Violet Blue have been systematically removed from the website Boing Boing. (Need a password? Use one of these.)

This isn’t recent news, and I’m not sure why the NYT decided to talk about it now. But they did, and they speculated that the “unpublishing” happened because of a personal issue between Violet Blue and one of the site’s contributors, Xeni Jardin. I myself do not know Ms. Jardin, and I have only an electronic acquaintance with Ms. Blue. So I do not have any idea what really happened there. Nor do I think it’s any of my business. But then, I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business.

Granted, the writer also posed – but did not answer – a few token questions about the responsibilities of bloggers, which is not an uninteresting subject. But overall, the whole thing just felt really gossipy to me. Oscar Wilde once said the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about. I know what he meant, and I often enjoy my tiny bit of celebrity-dom. But I also know I would hate it if my private affairs were being commented on in the bloody New York Times. Luckily, that doesn't seem like something that's likely to happen.

Writing about one’s life is tricky sometimes. It’s not just a matter of what I’m comfortable revealing to the world – I have to be careful not to say too much about other people, either. But sometimes it’s difficult not to write what I’m thinking. No matter what other verbal path I start down, my fingers wind up typing out whatever is at the front of my brain.

And what I’m thinking about lately is: Man, there is a lot of polyamory tension in the air lately! Just seems like a number of people are having trouble making the courses of their different loves run smooth. It’s funny how it seems to go in streaks – for a while everyone will be rolling along just fine, and then there’s a seismic shift, the ground moves under our feet, and everyone starts stumbling and crashing into each other.

None of this trouble is mine, and I’m profoundly grateful for how well things are going between me and Max, and me and Monk. I cannot tell you how many times I have turned to each of them in the last few weeks and said, “Thank you so much for being so amazingly cool.” And they have said the same to me, which is nice.

So I’m watching all these other storms spinning around me, like the Tasmanian devils in Bugs Bunny. And not only is it hard to not write about it, it’s hard to not speak up real life, too. One wants to pet people and say things like, “Oh, honey, I see that this is being hard for you, but just breathe - your sweetie loves you, everything is going to be all right, and this yucky part will pass.” This generic bit of advice being applicable to the majority of poly upsets.

But I don’t give advice unless I’m asked for it. Unless, of course, I can’t seem to write about anything else.

Pop Culture

I saw two movies over the weekend, which is slightly unusual for me. And more oddly still, I had a moment of yeah, that’s happened to me in each of them.

The first one was Get Smart, which I saw with Max Friday night. There’s a scene where Agent 99, played by Anne Hathaway, is tied up in the back seat of a car during a high-speed chase. The car is being driven by her former lover, who’s a double agent. He’s going to kill her and set off a bomb, but they get sidetracked into sniping at each other, in a manner typical of ex-lovers.

Stung by a jab of Anne’s, he yells back at her, “Well, some men like women who are feminine!”

Anne rears up in outrage and screeches, “Are you calling me unfeminine?” And, while still tied up, kicks him in the face – hard.

Which to me does not seem like a completely unreasonable response in that circumstance. I have never actually kicked someone in the face, but I myself have been called unfeminine, and at the time it I got rather annoyed by it. I knew, intellectually, that what it meant was “You scare me. Women aren’t supposed to scare men. Therefore you are not acting like a woman.” I would imagine pretty much any woman who’s strong-minded, independent, and direct about what she wants, in bed and out of it, gets this at least once in her life, if not more. It’s one of those put-downs that utterly reveals the insecurities of person who says it.

But still – at the time, it pissed me off. So I thought, “Yeah, you just go, girl. Show his ass unfeminine.”

Then on Saturday night, Monk and I went to see Wanted, with Angelina Jolie. It was what he and I call a Gun-Porn movie - meaning a movie in which sexy people with really BIG guns shoot each other over and over.

In this movie, Angelina and James McAvoy are professional assassins. There’s a scene in which the two of them are crouched in hiding, waiting to spring out and kill someone. James turns to Angelina and says, “Do you ever think about being… some other way?” When she displays confusion, he says, “You know, like not doing this. Like just being…normal?”

Angelina looks at him like he’s crazy. “No.”

And then they leap out to kill someone. Which again, I have never done, and don’t plan on doing. But still – I have had people indicate to me that my life wasn’t what they considered normal. It wasn’t a compliment. Some of them had a mistaken idea that I would change it to suit them. My solution was to invite them to not participate in it.

I really want that short white leather jacket Agent 99 was wearing for a chunk of the movie, and if anyone calls me unfeminine while I’m in it, well, there’s just no telling what I might do. Because I’m really not interested in being someone else’s idea of normal.