Still making do with my life, shucky-darn.

[kiya]

Saying it here because it'll do more good, and because I need to fucking say something, and The Lifestyle Rant is bubbling up out of all my orifices in a really unfortunate way: Given that apparently "the polyamorous lifestyle" is somehow distinct from being interested in specific people and pursuing honest relationships with them, it's no wonder I find it so fucking unappealing. See also previous splutter, reproduced there in full.


Other misc:

I'm getting more Earth as I'm getting older, which is interesting. Of course, I'm still Fire, so this is starting to manifest in a profound urge to go around and thump people until they start being practical.

Trying to rearrange the way I conduct my life so that I don't do things that tend to feed the depression. Part of this is clearing up things that are hanging over me so I don't have to worry about them anymore. Part of this is rearranging my online time usage somewhat and getting more reading done. Part of this is cleaning the damn kitchen floor.

618 words. Plus deleting some bits and adding some other bits that I didn't count.

Comments

[larksdream]

Anything I can offer to help with stress? I have kites.

[kiya]

Unfortunately, a lot of it is "I need to get this thing done and I don't wanna" stress that's piling up and achieving neutronium density.

[larksdream]

*nod* Exponential stress buildup. *sympathy* *virtual tea*

Well, I'm good at cleaning, I could do the floor... *g*

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can comment usefully on the polystuff, but I absolutely *died* when I read this:

or the gratuitous usage of "Oh shit, here comes an S!" apostrophes.

Best Punctuation Snark Ever.

[kiya]

*howls at your icon*

The "Oh shit, here comes an S!" isn't original, so feel free to appropriate it for your own use. :)


The polystuff was . . . stupid. I hate this "lifestyle" crap.

[rainfallsautumn.livejournal.com]

Heh. :) Nemtet made that one.

I will gladly appropriate it! That-- along with "loose/lose" and "breath/breathe"-- is the writing mistake which annoys me the most. My father was famous for it, a whole store with boxes labeled "sticker's" and "label's" and the like.

I read the Polyamory community yesterday, wondering if that's where the trouble broke out, and am admittedly a bit confused at the seeming one-wayism I saw. I'd think there would be a multiplicity of ways to be poly. Rob and I technically have an open marriage, but I'm very much of the "I don't want details" mindset. The one outside relationship I had, the man's wife was of the seemingly more traditional (?) way of being poly, wanted to have joint dinners and joint... err... Squicked the living heck out of me. I guess I am odd or something.

I do understand where you're coming from on the "lifestyle" thing, at least a bit. Like a part of your being is a "style" that can be changed or discarded at will, instead of something... integral. Am I close?

[kiya]

Honestly, the polyamory community on LJ is one of the most drama-prone, fluffy, useless, narrowminded-dogmatic poly groups I have ever encountered, and I'm not exactly unfamiliar with them. Part of this is common-failure-state-of-LJ, of course, but agh anyway.

My favorite drama involving that was the time someone had a tremendous pissing match with me about whether or not he could call himself poly when he was not only not interested in having multiple relationships but actively antagonistic to the concept, and he had a snit at me. He then showed up on a useful forum, I replied to him, and he made a reply thanking me for my help as opposed to the horrible person on LJ. (At which point I realised who he was.)


I gots no idea what's the most common implementation of polyamorous whateverage, but I'm squicked out by package-dealie too. (A lot of people are. And a lot of other people are confused as to why they can't find someone who will date both of them. Heh.)


That's part of the "lifestyle" thing; my family is a family, not some sort of hobby. There are other bits of it, too. First of all, that the word "lifestyle" when referring to a minority group, especially a minority-sexuality group, is irrevocably associated with the phrase "gay lifestyle", which I have only ever seen attached to homophobic statements. Basically, the term carries connotation of "antagonistic outsider" to me.

Secondly, sheer literal meaning. The word "lifestyle" refers to a manner of living, something externally observable, and generally associated with socioeconomic patterns, spending, and the like. I live with one person (teinedreugan), two cats, various fish, and a snake; we own our own house and a car; he's an engineer on call every third week at this point, I work at home; we're mid-late twenties, our social circle is likewise largely composed of mid-twenties to mid-thirties people in technical employment in the Boston area; most of our disposable income goes on electronics, games, and books. We have DSL but do our long-distance telephony exclusively by cellphone. Betcha you can assemble a pretty good image of "manner of living" from that; while me being stay-at-home makes us fairly atypical in our bracket, it's not an uncommon lifestyle for our age group, economic status, etc., in the Northeast. On the other hand, if I tell you I'm polyamorous, you know nothing about the way I live, so that cannot be lifestyle information.

Another reason some folks are knee-twitchy about it is that "the lifestyle" is swinger jargon, and (getting back to that whole bubble-identification thing) some people are very firm about the whole We Are Not Them bit. I don't have this (largely because I hated the phrasing long before I heard this) (well, and also because I see swinging as 'something I don't do' and only get het up about it when someone tries to tell me that I do), but it's out there.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I *heart* you. I think I'll link to this comment in my journal (unless there's some good reason you don't want me to?).

[kiya]

No, go ahead if you want; it's a public post and all. :}