I understand that polyamory isn’t for everyone. In fact, I understand it isn’t for most people. I get that people are going to be uncomfortable with the way I live my life at times. I have no control over the attitudes and opinions that people form when they find out who and what I am. That said, I’m not going to put myself in the closet because it makes people uncomfortable.

Recently I had what I’ve come to know is an unfortunately common experience. Guy A finds out I’m poly. Guy A therefore assumes that any contact initiated by me is a come-on because you know…poly girls will do anyone. *snort* Guy A can’t handle this and acts like a doofus every time I’m around him. It’s gone from mildly amusing to making me seethe. I came very close to telling him off the other night and I thought maybe it would be instructive to do so here.

Dear You Know Who You Are:

You seem to lack a fundamental understanding of what it means to be polyamorous. Allow me to educate you. It does not mean that I will sleep with anyone possessing the proper equipment. That is called being a slut, which I am most certainly not. I liked you, made an offer intended to allow me to get to know you better and I was turned down. No big deal. Being polyamorous also doesn’t mean that I don’t have discernment. From your reaction to a one-time, simple overture, I quickly discovered that you could never be my type and I let it drop. So I don’t really see your continuing discomfort as my problem.

What has become my problem is that you won’t let this go. Move on, already. Accept the fact that I challenge your boundaries and leave it at that. But please, don’t act as though you are doing me a favor by speaking to me. I let the matter drop months ago and you continue to be challenged by a non-existent situation. You are not all that and a bag of chips as you seem to think. Unlike some of the women with whom you surround yourself, I’m not going to fawn all over you and tell you what you want to hear just so I can be in the glorious light of your presence. In short, you sir, need to grow the hell up.

Furthermore, if you’re going to make judgments about me based on gossip, misinformation and outright lies by people who are acting out of simple jealousy, you are not a person I care to know in any way. Polyamory is based wholly on honesty and open communication. Because of that, I have extremely limited patience with games and drama of the sort that you attempt to pull every time I see you. So once again, I am going to attempt what I’ve done the past few months and let this go. I really hope you can do the same, because it’s getting old.

Any questions? Feel free to ask.

With extreme annoyance, Leah.

I’ve been thinking about scarcity lately. We live in a scarcity culture, as demonstrated by so many things. We squabble about spending resources on health care. We fear that immigrants will steal our resources. We’re jealous when someone gets an opportunity that we don’t. We compete over jobs, lovers and friends. We do these things because society tells us that if someone else gets something, by definition it takes something away from us.

But does it really? Or are we just too caught up in defending our own small patch of the universe that we fail to see that the most important things exist in enough abundance for everyone to share? Some things will always exist in limited quantities. Time. Physical energy. Money. Food. But the relative scarcity of these things can be offset by the limitless supplies of creativity, love, and regard for our fellow human beings.

Think about it. Perhaps someone you know gets an amazing opportunity. Or your best friend makes a new friend. Do these things truly diminish you in any way? Whether you believe they do or not depends on whether you’re living your life with an attitude of scarcity or one of abundance. It’s a conscious choice.

I choose abundance. When friends and family have good fortune, I choose to rejoice with and for them. Sometimes, it’s not an easy choice. Sometimes, good things happen to people I don’t particularly care for and it’s all too easy to slip into wondering why they deserved it and I didn’t. It is often an exercise in sheer will to continue believing that there are as many good things out there waiting for me as for anyone else. But for me, there is no alternative other than living a life filled with bitterness and envy which I flatly refuse to do.

I just finished reading the text of President Obama’s speech to schoochildren that he’s planning to deliver today, the first day of school for many children in America. As I expected, there’s a glaring absence of political content. He exhorts students to stay in school, find out what they’re good at, be responsible citizens, etc. He also re-tells my favorite story from the campaign about getting up at 4:30 in the morning to study with his mother and her answer to his complaints, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

But what I love most about this speech is the following bit of unassuming prose: “You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.”

Knowledge. Problem-solving skills. Insights. Critical thinking skills. Creativity. Ingenuity. All things that are critically important in today’s world and all in woefully short supply in this country. In fact, the debate over the speech itself demonstrates just how little some Americans engage in critical thinking in particular.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of watching President Nixon resign his office. I was six years old, roughly the age my daughter is now. We were at the state fair in New Jersey, where we lived at the time. I remember being told to be quiet because the President was making an important speech. But my parents didn’t just hush me and protect me. They explained to me, in words a child could understand, what was happening and why they felt the resignation was significant.

All my young life, my father engaged me on the issues. He loved (and still does) to debate with me, challenging my views and making me think more deeply about my positions. Nothing drew more scorn from him than saying I’d heard it somewhere and therefore believed it. Simply put, he taught me to think for myself.

That, more than anything else, is what bothers me the most about the controversy regarding the President’s address. It’s not that people have different political views that I do. It’s not even that some parents would rather their child be excused from viewing the speech. That’s their right. It’s that an entire segment of the population is blindly, unquestioningly following a few noisy, lazy, ignorant people to whom critical thinking, logic and introspection are anathema.

That kind of blind obedience to anyone, be it God, Jesus or a radio talk show host, scares the wits out of me. Life is questioning. Life is seeking. Life is learning. Without those things, it’s just a long, boring slog to the end of the line. Who would choose to live like that?

It seems to me that the more loudly a person espouses a particular philosophy of life, the more pressure they’re going to be under to live up to their own credo. This applies not only to the treatment they *accept* from others, but to the treatment they *bestow* upon others. This is why I choose not to have a grand, sweeping, one size fits all philosophy. I try to take things as they come, judge them individually and react accordingly as the situation demands.

I also don’t believe in asking the universe or a higher power to manifest anything in my life. I prefer to ask the powers for guidance on how to manifest those things for myself. A fine distinction, I realize, but one that’s important to me because then if things go wrong I only have myself to blame. I have come to believe that it is only in looking inward, rather than casting outward, that true change can be manifested.

The threefold law, karma, etc. seem to me to involve some sort of expectation. “If I do this, I will get this…” I don’t believe that. I believe it’s incumbent upon each individual to act as their conscience directs and most importantly, accept, internalize and learn from the consequences of their actions. For me, that means striving to treat every individual with decency and respect, offering amends when I fail, speaking the truth both internally and to others, and most importantly, attempting to refrain from expecting the same behavior from others as my values may not be theirs.

Life is all about the journey. About the trying, the striving, the changing and the growing. I can be perfect when I’m dead.

That’s my two cents. As always, I respect that others may walk a path more suitable for them.

Apparently it’s not just public figures who have their online boundaries violated. The other night, guy comes into a chat…sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it? It was anything but. Let me set the scene by saying I’ve had a few very minor run-ins with this person before. Months ago. Just me being snarky, like I do.

He came into the chat and there was, again, minor snarkage. He blew his fucking top and started cursing and insulting me in front of about 40 people. He singled me out of the group of snarkers, for some reason. The chat mod appropriately commanded us to take it to IM. I was reluctant to give out my IM info, but I really respect the mod, so I did.

I’m still shaken by what followed. He demanded that we “work things out” and wanted to know why I have a “vendetta” against him. Buh? Dude, I’ve talked to you all of 4-5 times, the last time being more than two months ago. I said as much and added that I felt no obligation to work things out as I *don’t know him*. He pushed for a reason why I “don’t like him.”

You do not ask me questions like that unless you’re willing to hear an honest answer. Which I gave, in detail, including the fact that he’s an annoying little assclown with no sense of appropriate boundaries. Sorry, but he pushed me.

What followed was a string of profanity, sexual insults and threats the likes of which I have never experienced. Insults that were so graphic and personal that I thought I was going to vomit. I banned his ass from my IM and told him if I heard even one more word, I was reporting him to the authorities.

Not *five minutes later* in the public chat, he slimed in trying to make it seem like we’d just had a misunderstanding and I was blowing it out of proportion. No, dude. We did not have a misunderstanding. You singled me out, violated my boundaries, violated *me* and as far as I can tell you did it for no other reason than being in a bad mood.

What’s the problem here? This is someone that I may have to share actual, physical space with at some point. To say I feel uncomfortable about that is a vast understatement.  What I don’t understand is apparently this isn’t the first time this guy has pulled a stunt like this. Apparently he shows up every couple of months, pitches a psycho fit, attempts to ameliorate his behavior by sliming on people and then leaves again. Yet, his presence is still tolerated in the virtual and physical community. W…T…F…?

And yeah…didn’t save the chat log. *sigh*

“P” for polyamory. For the unfamiliar, that means being open to loving relationships with more than one person at a time. At least that’s my definition. Here’s a list of things it does not mean.

• It does not mean I am indiscriminate or slutty. See *loving* relationships above. I’m sex-positive and enjoy the act, but I’m not going to do you just because you’re breathing and willing.
• It does not mean I will automatically sleep with you and your partner. Because romantic chemistry is just so easy to establish between two people, let alone three…*eyeroll*
• It does not mean my husband is not meeting my needs. We get on just fine, thanks. He never leaves the toilet seat up and has great taste in women.
• It does not mean cheating, adultery or infidelity. “You’re POLY?? Does your *husband* know??” Yes. Thanks for asking.
• It does not mean I will sleep with you behind anyone’s back. Got a partner? Expect me to ask for their phone number before you get any.

Sometimes I get tired of explaining these things. But then I realize that when you live a lifestyle practiced by less than 1% of the people in the country, you kind of have to if you’re going to get what you want. The awkwardness of it just weighs on me sometimes.

You meet someone you’re interested in and you have to figure out when to have “the conversation.” Too early and it looks like you’re desperate. Too late and it’s a shock, “By the way…I’ve been married for six years.” That’s a great way to shrivel up the parts, if you know what I’m saying.

Got questions? I’m more than happy to answer.

I haven’t been posting much the last couple weeks because this has been sucking up all my free time. UStream is a site that lets people stream live video and audio from their webcams. There are all kinds of applications (I’m planning on using it to deliver real-time lectures to my online students this summer). Enter the Haggis has been using it to stream the majority of their shows live for the last couple weeks. What makes this different from taping a show to play on YouTube or something similar is the interactive aspect. There’s an associated chat room where fans (or students) can interact with each other or with the person on the live stream. There are all kinds of features I haven’t explored yet, too. If an indie band is lucky enough to have a tech geek for a member, this is a great promo tool.

In other news, I have a huge list of bands that I’m slowly checking out. I started with an old band that’s new to me, The Tragically Hip. I vaguely knew they were Canadian and folk-rock esque, but that was about it. I mentioned to my husband that I’d heard a Hip song that I liked and his answer was to produce everything the band had done up to the year 2000 from his CD collection! He was a big fan growing up, apparently. The things you learn about your spouse… So I’ve been working my way through their older catalog and have plans to get the seven (!) CDs we need to complete our collection.

One thing I love about the Haggis Head community is the widely varying musical tastes of the folks who hang out there. Here’s my list so far of bands to check out: Tegan and Sara, Metric, Eisley, Missy Higgins, Jump Little Children, Dar Williams, the Abrams Brothers, the Decemberists and I have a whole other list somewhere that I can’t lay my hands on at the moment. I’m going to be a busy girl…

So what’s in your MP3 player today?

I figured I should establish my cred as a reviewer of live music by giving some history of the shows I’ve gone to over the years. This is part one of two, and will deal with everything but the Grateful Dead shows, which need their own post.

Since I was a tiny kid, my parents took me to all kinds of live music. Symphony, folk music, musicals, things like that. I always loved it but I didn’t understand the full power of live rock music until 1984. That year, I went to what I now call my first real concert: Van Halen on the 1984 tour when David Lee Roth was still with them. OK, yeah, I’m kind of old. Whatever. I will never forget perching on the back of my folding chair, in heels, 20 rows from the stage, dead center. The music was ear-splitting, the crowd was wild and intense, the air perfumed with joyful sweat and marijuana smoke (what *do* people call it now?). I was 15, a social outcast, and I left the Philadelphia Spectrum that night with the sense that I’d finally found a place to belong, even for just a brief span of time. As a historical footnote, the video for “Panama” was filmed the night I was there.

The next year, I saw U2 on their “Unforgettable Fire” tour, again at the Spectrum. To this day, it is still in my top ten list of live music experiences. The CD hadn’t been out for very long at that time, but I was enough of a fan to know all the new songs. That same year I saw Bryan Adams (*cringe*) about two weeks before Live Aid. To this day, I can’t believe I missed Live Aid. I was *right there*, an hour from Philadelphia. Watched it on TV though.

During my college years, I saw quite a few prog rock and punk shows. Dead Milkmen, Marillion, Butthole Surfers, stuff like that. As well as many, many nights of listening to my college friends “bands”. I also saw U2 twice more for “Joshua Tree” during that period of time. Of all those, Marillion stands out the most. They were *huge* in Europe at the time, selling out soccer stadiums, but we saw them in teeny tiny bars in places like Poughkeepsie and Albany.

After college, I almost immediately discovered the Grateful Dead, which will be covered in a separate post. In my 20s, I saw all kinds of music. Jam bands, jazz, classic rock, pop, bluegrass, blues, anywhere and everywhere I could get. I haunted the clubs in Baltimore and saw bands like The Counting Crows way before they were well-known. I had a friend who had a band, jammy jazz influenced original stuff and for a while, every Saturday night, we’d go hear them. It was during this time that I discovered some of what remains my favorite music to date. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Blues Traveler, Eric Clapton, Phish and more.

Then I got married and immersed in real life and it all kind of…stopped. For a period of several years, I didn’t see any live music at all. I’d lost interest in standard radio music. The local alternative station in Baltimore changed formats. I was in grad school and broke. I got divorced somewhere in there. Then, one of those random, life-changing things happened and I managed to discover Great Big Sea while living about 1,000 miles from Newfoundland. I met my now-husband, which is a story in and of itself, and started seeing all kinds of East Coast bands, celtic rock bands, etc. when we lived in Toronto.

After moving to the cultural wasteland of South Florida, my primary exposure to live music came at Ren faires. I was still missing that bone-shaking, full-body, rock concert experience. We moved to Missouri. More bluegrass and Ozark folk music. Then…then I saw Enter the Haggis at the Milwaukee Irish Festival in August, 2007. I’d seen them before, more than a few times, but for some reason the experience of standing out in the pouring rain, drenched, freezing and singing my heart out, resonated with me in a way few live performances had ever done before. I bought “Northampton” at that show and I was gone. Never looked back. It was *exactly* the kind of musical experience I’d been missing so much. Adrenaline rushing, ear-ringing, bone-vibrating, and alive.

So…that’s my concert history. What’s yours?

I took off on Friday for some badly needed me-time and headed up to Dayton, OH to see Enter the Haggis. Why yes, I did make two 20-hour round trips in six days to see these guys. They are that good. People often don’t understand the lengths I will go to to hear good music. At some point, I’ll post about the total lack of a music scene where I live.

Anyway, took off around 6:00am and headed up I-44.

So, I’m driving up I-44 south of St. Louis. I’m doing just over the limit, listening to Arcturus by ETH and feeling happy. I see a cop in the left median, so I pull into the right lane, cause that’s what you’re supposed to do. He pulls out, gets behind me, then pulls around and ahead of me, then alongside. Then he drops back and puts on the flashers.

I’m utterly confused at this point and running through the mental checklist. No lights out. Registration up to date. Not speeding. I got bupkis. He comes over to the passenger side and motions me to open the door. So I do and he says, “Did you know that your front license plate is missing?” WTF??

I said, yes, it’s in the trunk. I don’t have a front mount and it’s not the law in MO that you have to have a front tag, just a recommendation. He taps my cooler, which I have sitting in the passenger seat so I can get at it, and says, “Whatcha got in here?”

You have no idea how tempted I was to say, “Illegally harvested internal organs. There’s a Russian crime boss who’s gonna be pissed if this heart goes bad before his transplant.” But I didn’t. I said, “soda, mostly.” He kept questioning me about where I was going what I was doing, etc. Finally I just clammed up and handed him my license. He was flat-out hassling me and I was sick of it.

Of course I didn’t have my insurance card. He gave me a warning for that and told me to have my husband take care of that for me when I got home. Sexist bastard.

To make matters worse, he interrupted Arcturus. Even my *husband* doesn’t interrupt me when I’m listening to Arcturus.

So that was my cop adventure on this trip. It felt like old times. On the road to hear music, getting hassled by the cops! I still haven’t the foggiest idea why he pulled me over…