The Aftermath — Part IV, Sex and Secrets and Match.com

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Secrets.

“It has never been a secret but there are people who didn’t know,” I wrote a couple of months ago. “It really is simple. Anne and Nancy are two beautiful ladies. Why ever would I not want share my love for them with the world?”
Despite the openness of this series, Nancy and I have been reticent to come out of the closet in our mainstream lives.

“That has less to do with freaking out,” Nancy said, “and more to do with the fact that most people don’t have to make a big deal out of their lifestyles because they step up to the ‘normal’ line.”

I like that. Anyone can read those blogs but the number who do so far seems limited to people we know and people we have invited. Plus the odd spammer. I’m not interested in having a relationship with the latter. And as match.com points out, “Polyamorous people generally discuss their [private] lives much in the same way others do: rarely, and only with people around whom they feel comfortable doing so.” It’s much the same as talking about politics or religion. Except, of course, that elsewhere on these pages I bash politics and religion, too.

“One of the most awkward things that can happen in a pub is when your pint-to-toilet cycle gets synchronized with a complete stranger,” Peter Kay said.

Keeping secrets = not sharing?

Secrets, not sharing: I’ve wondered about my Relationship status on Facebook. Only Mr. Zuckerberg knows why I can’t write “with Anne” and “with Nancy” but I know why I haven’t. Yet. We haven’t quite come out that far. We have cow orkers as friends. We have children. I have grandchildren. They all can read the poly blogs but they haven’t called us on them (yet).

A better status line might be “ask me and I’ll probably tell you.”

Not sharing = keeping secrets?

I will mostly answer any question asked but I volunteer only what I want you, dear reader, to know or what my audience expects to know. And I’m careful with restroom timing. That’s not sharing but it does mean I have one or two secrets.

Like knowing where to park in Key West.

The sharing question fits in with Nancy’s trip planning. She visited the Keys and told TUFKAS only generalities about the trip. I visited Arizona and withheld most details about that trip. Anne went to Arizona and told me all about Pringles. Nancy went on a family cruise and shared the typical vacation photos.

Anne and the dear, close friend we called “Sally” are in the Keys this month. Up North, the girls bowl on Mondays and play cards on weekends. Here they don’t bowl, so they go to the beach and play cards every day. They drove to Key Weird yesterday. Anne hasn’t been to Key West for a while, so I gave her the piddle pass1, some high points to look for, and told her where I leave the car. Key West is a place for walkies.

“You’ve parked there with me before,” I said.

“Nooooo.” And I could see the “you parked there with her” thought go right across her forehead in bright lights.

Anne’s pique over parking came not because I found a nice (free) 10×20 piece of real estate in a tiny city where that plot is gold. It came because I did something with Nancy that perhaps I did not do with Anne.

The match.com article explores the day-to-day realities of poly living and loving to answer the question of whether polyamory might be the right lifestyle choice for you but it spends a lot of words on the (kinky) sex and it doesn’t look at how much you tell one partner about what you do with another.

How much do I share with one partner about what I do with the other?

That depends. Anne spurns the stories and photos of hugging the statue on the cornah in Winslow, Arizona, or watching a shark in the shallows off Crane Point. Nancy embraces the stories and photos of concert planning in North Puffin or the ferry across Lake Champlain, foliage, and a picnic at the Crown Point Historic Site.


www.floridastateparks.org/lib/img/default/banner/homosassa.jpg1 My folks always called their unlimited Florida State Parks pass a “piddle pass” because they could stop to use the facilities at any of 160 state parks and reserves. As an aside, they usually saw somebody pretty cool there, too.

[Editor’s Note: gekko and I shared a four-part polylocution plus these Afterglow posts. Please visit her piece, Those Scuffy Areas We Don’t Talk About, and use The Poly Posts index for the entire series and for other resources.]





Premte Peeves

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San Francisco mandates no happy ending. The city of light and love has banned happy meals. That’s a nanny too far.

Voters in the heartland have generally wanted to do the happy dance since Tuesday but S.F. banned happy dances, too.




People’s Republic of Vermont

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While North Puffin joined much of the country in leaning more to the right, Vermont Democrats won the guv’s office and will continue to strongarm the Legislature. Dems will control the Senate, 21-8, and have a 94-47 majority over Repugs in the House. The People’s Republic of Vermont, long envisioned by Howard Dean and Cheryl Rivers, has finally come to be.

Turnout was high across Vermont yesterday; towns around North Puffin posted record numbers of voters at the polls. It didn’t help.

You know about all the states banning ObamaCare? In Vermont, Peter Shumlin and Company’s first move will be to pass the entire 12,000 page federal act as a state law. They will make some changes, though. None of the namby-pamby “you have to buy private insurance” rules. ShumpleCare will ban private insurers.

Don’t be surprised if your taxes go up a skoch.





Taxation with Representation

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Guess what tomorrow is. Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either:

  • Every legislator gets elected by spending someone else’s money.
  • Every legislator stays in office by spending someone else’s money.
  • No legislator has left office poorer than when he arrived.

Got any other questions?


I voted Friday. Followed my plan not to vote for any politician who talked about his or her opponent.

Here in Florida, in addition to mainstream races for governor and U.S. Senator, we’re electing an Attorney General, a CFO, a couple of School Directors to replace the ones who hired the last set of (alleged) crooks, a state rep, two county commissioners to replace the ones who hired the last set of (alleged) crooks, two Mosquito Board directors to replace the ones who hired the last set of (alleged) crooks, and a Commissioner of Agriculture.

Charles Bronson who is neither Charlie Bronson nor Charles Bronson has served as ag commissioner since 2001. He was born into a ranching family in Kissimmee and has a Bachelor of Science in agricultural education plus animal and meat sciences from the University of Georgia. He’s retiring so the open seat has attracted the usual critters.

Agriculture brings in $102 billion/year; it is Florida’s second largest industry. Only Tourism does more. It is also the state’s lead consumer protection agency. One candidate for the job is a young career politician and former state rep and congressman, with support from the opposing party. A second candidate was said to “do to agriculture what he does to everything else, use it for his own good. He was a worthless mayor who managed to double his salary and he ran the Democratic party into virtual bankruptcy.” Another is called a “fake teapartier.”

It’s simple. If one guy in the race talks about the other, he’s probably lying. Vote for the other guy, no matter what. If they both do it (usually the case), figure they’re both lying and WRITE YOUR OWN NAME IN.

I may end up with a lot of jobs come January. Maybe even Public Assayer.

Over in Nevada, it’s hold your nose and vote as Harry Reid and his challenger Sharron Angle have the same problem. Voters don’t like either of them.

Here’s another story.

Founded 208 years ago in the Newton, Iowa, of 1893, Maytag was a $4.7 billion appliance company with the world’s loneliest repairman. It was headquartered there until 2006 when it became part of the Whirlpool conglomerate which moved the rest of Maytag manufacturing to Mexico and China. Newton residents are now the world’s loneliest people. This is a story about corporate outsourcing — Maytag probably would have moved with or without the Category 5 economic storm called the Great Recession — but the town remains depressed because no one else is stepping up to recreate those jobs. It’s a story playing out in every small town in America.

60 Minutes visited Newton last night. To a man or woman Newtonians don’t care whether Repuglicans or Demorats get elected tomorrow.

“I’m sick and tired of people going to Congress in Washington D.C. making a living at it while we starve to death.”

Exactly.


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