Merril and I have really hit it off. We just started learning Ruby together. I want to do some scripting of Sketchup, maybe make a program to generate random town and village maps for RPGs. He wants to get up to speed fast and then we'd write a book about it. It's so new, there aren't really that many books out yet.

Jenny is a little miffed at him. He's a little misogynistic. Or rather, he's afraid of women and a bit insecure. He can't stand the fact that she can beat him at games like Rummikub. I think smart women attract but frighten him at the same time. He's also a little bit bigoted. We had to let him know that he can't go around assuming people are less intelligent based on their race, at least not if he wants to hang out with us.

Jenny is at the point where she wants the relationship to be about more than just sex. He's still getting his mind blown every time. She really is the best I've ever had. It's very rewarding having sex with a girl who can have internal vaginal orgasms in less than ten minutes, pretty much every time. Plus, she knows how to move, how to show you that she really, really likes it. And she's a screamer, which is great if you like aural sex.

But she's at the point where she wants him to open up to her a little bit, or at least give some token that he likes her for more than just sex. I tried to tell him that he's on a little bit shaky ground on Monday. I didn't tell her, just went over at lunch and said, "You know, she's a little sad. Maybe It's just PMS, but she could use some cheering up. I think she'd like to know that you like her for more than just sex. Maybe some flowers? $5.99 at Albertson's, it's on the way."

Did he show up with flowers? Of course not. If he had, I wouldn't have told her, but we were processing the next day and she brought up her fears and insecurities again, so I felt I had to give her that additional data point. Now, if it was me, I'd be in big trouble for treating her like he does. But he's got a big dick, and evidently that is a "get out of the doghouse, free" card. Sigh.

So, a little bigoted, a little misogynistic, and scared of real intimacy. Another fixer-upper. A friend of ours told us that some friends of his who had started up a polyamory group here were trying to get it back together. We're definitely going to check that out. Sure, there are messed up people in poly circles, too. But in the ones I've been involved with, there was always a core group of really solid, open, honest, and fun people without too many problems or hangups.

But Merril is definitely worth a little effort. You can't change other people, but you can give them both incentive and help in changing themselves. I think Merril wants to change, I mean, who really wants to be scared of intimacy? Connecting with other humans on a heart to heart level is, to me, one of the very best things in life.

I'm working on a GURPS fantasy campaign set in an alternate Earth, Elizabethan era. I've done quite a bit of cartography with the Profantasy suite. It's quite nice, I've got the Fractal Terrains program, and the Campaign Cartographer with dungeon and city add ons. Some months ago I discovered Google Sketchup, a great free version of the Sketchup 3D modeling program used to create buildings in Google Earth. I've got a bunch of models uploaded to the 3D Warehouse site, including some very nice ship and castle models with detailed interiors.

The gist of the campaign is Harry Potter meets Master and Commander. I think the background I've developed is quite ingenious. Basically, Elves, who are more like the Tuatha De Danann than Tolkien's friendly, helpful Elves, invaded from faerie around 1400 years previously; conquered all the advanced races on the planet; instituted religious reform saying that all Gods were mere reflections of the Real, elven Gods; and taught a new system of magic while demonizing the old, spirit based magic. Then they mysteriously disappeared about four hundred years after their conquest was complete, leaving the world to fall into a dark age.

Now, it's a time of enlightenment. A new age of exploration begins, and the people of the island nation of Ghent are determined to outdo their continental neighbors, who currently have more colonies overseas, and a bigger navy. But the Ghentians have a secret weapon: ancient Elven ship building techniques have recently been recovered, and a new type of ship is being built in secret.

The campaign covers three chapters, and in each, players can keep their old characters or play new ones. The first chapter details the finding of the plans in an ancient elven citadel, intrigue in the secret ship yard where the first small prototype is being constructed, exploration of a forbidden Elven island, defeating the guardians and reactivating the old Elven technology found there, and finally, the building of the ship that will be the first to carry humans around the world. The players are a band of adventurers hired by a high placed agent of the Crown to help carry out these endeavors. They go on to help the agent enact the desires of the Queen on the voyage of discovery.

The second chapter involves the voyage itself, discovering new lands and new races, and gradually piecing together the mystery of the elves. The players can keep playing their old characters, or take on the role of midshipmen, mage's apprentices, rangers, or marines. The final chapter begins when the first voyage is complete, as a small fleet is launched to carry out diplomacy and open up trade with the newly discovered civilizations, the mystery is solved at last, and a major excursion into faerie is undertaken to break the last hold the Elves have over the world.

As the Elves were androgynous, assuming whatever form they desired at a whim, they never understood sexual roles in humans or other races and treated them all the same. They tended to use other races more like domesticated animals and never showed empathy or remorse, though they did show lust and possessiveness. They used the other races as fireball fodder in their wars of conquest.

They did not understand other races emotions, and used them sexually, leading to some very great societal differences between our world and that one. For one thing, the sexes are still equal, even after the disappearance of the Elves. For another, sexuality is quite a bit more open, but some strange and disturbing attitudes remain from the days of Elven subjugation.

Anyway, if you are into either RPGs or naval history you might want to download some of the ship models I've made and take a look. Some are realistic, others more fantastical. There are also some nice models of castles and towns.

Sketchup is free, and one of the most intuitive modeling programs I've used. Definitely worth the download. Some of my later hulls were designed using the free version of Delftship, with only the interiors and details added in Sketchup. Delftship is amazing, using subdivision surfaces which allow you to define most hulls using only a few control points, and then subdivide it into as many or as few polygons as you like. And it calculates all the important hydrodynamics, so you can figure out how well your hull would function.

I'll be putting up a site with more world background, maps, models, and pictures a bit later.

Merril (that, I find out, is how it is spelled) was over again tonight, and I wanted to write about it, but then I reread Friday's entry, and this was a repeat of that. Except that Jenny tried much harder to give us our space to connect.

When I said that the geek connection is as powerful as a sexual connection, that wasn't hyperbole. I've felt it many times in my life. There's something very intense about finding another person with whom you can share certain intellectual parts of your self. Merril and my conversation tonight ranged over mathematics, quantum physics, game theory, Perl programming, object oriented programming, hydrodynamics, war history, and artificial intelligence. Among other things.

Whenever the conversation veered towards topics that Jenny couldn't take part in, she would excuse herself to let us talk. I could tell it was a strain on her. Sometimes she would sit and listen, but with her arms crossed, obviously feeling defensive.

Jenny is incredibly intelligent, but in a different way from Merril and I. Her intelligence is primarily social and emotional, and where it is logical, it encompasses a totally different knowledge base than ours. She can analyze the hell out of any artistic endeavor, in a way that makes the lit-crit pomo liberal arts types seem like the punters they really are.

The thing is, her emotional and social intelligence get short circuited when she feels threatened. She can look at any situation not involving herself, and break down everyone's true motivations in a way that seems obvious, but that most people never would have thought of if she hadn't mentioned it. She can do that with her own motivations, after the fact, and so can I. That has been the main thing that has kept our relationship working over the years.

Merril is a typical guy in that regard. Not nearly as hurt and dysfunctional as Mr. Y., but like most guys, uncomfortable with the illogical complexity of human feelings. He's divorced, and is obviously uncomfortable dealing with "women's issues." He had a strong, overbearing mother and a wife who "nagged the hell out of him." When Jenny and I brought up the fact that we were in couple's counseling, he said, "That's all I need, two bitches in the room yelling at me." Ouch.

Now, one of the things about the way Jenny and I do polyamory: we share everything. When she has a crush, I can be like a big sister to her. Well, maybe like an older cousin who has a crush on you. Anyway, we talk about things, including the emotional state of said crush.

You better be sharp if you get involved with us, because your mental, emotional, and situational state will be analyzed to the umpteenth degree. We may make mistakes, like we did with Mr. Y., but it isn't out of malice. We really want everyone in the world to be intimate with everyone else. That's our strength as a species, our ability to share our experiences with others. You can't share if you are too afraid to be honest, and after seven years and too many close calls to dwell on, I think we are finally there.

While Jenny was in the bathroom, I took the opportunity to tell Merril that he should engage Jenny where she is at, intellectually. There was an interesting Slashdot article recently on early attitudes towards intelligence recently. Basically, if you tie self worth to intelligence early on, you cripple it. If you teach that intelligence is malleable, and that anyone can become smarter through hard study, you enhance it.

All three of us got that bad first message, but Jenny got it far worse than Merril or I. The two of us can still approach intellectual challenges as an opportunity to broaden ourselves, while she sees them as an affront to her self worth. So she has a harder time discussing things that are new to her. So he should meet her where she is at, and talk about directing, acting, art history, cinematography, design, politics, sociology, philosophy, ethics, and human nature.

Now I personally am a true renaissance man. I can discuss mathematics and the intangibles of human feelings, the history of combat and the history of pacifism, art and science: my left and right brain are pretty well integrated. I've had a lot of positive experiences dealing with logical and intuitive types of thinking. So I can see both sides.

This is one reason that Jenny really loves me. It's one of the reasons I'm not afraid to let her have experiences where she is infatuated with another guy. We've been together for seven years, and we were partners above all else from almost the very beginning. Not counting our having sex within fifteen minutes of meeting at the Rainbow Gathering in Oregon, because we were barely ever in the same state for the next two years. But now, we trust each other, that we have each other's back.

Unless you were born rich and privileged, when you find someone that you know has your back, stick with that person. I discount the privileged because they are taught never to trust anyone and to take advantage wherever they can, so they need to work through that before they can be interdependent. I was raised middle class, and Jenny was raised working class, so at least we don't have that hanging over our heads.

Mr. Y. challenged us when we were at a real low point, but we made our peace with being apart and then came back together with a renewed sense of why we wanted to be partners in the first place. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My story now is that, although Merril rocks her world sexually that is only one part of a complete relationship, and he is not capable of being a real partner. Honestly, if I thought that out of fear or malice, one would think I'd try to use it against him. Instead, I try to tell him what he needs to do to develop an even more intimate relationship with her. Because I want that for her, and I think he needs to experience a relationship with a woman who can be a real partner, not just a ball buster.

One of the many things Jenny and I have in common is that we look at the motivations, psyche, and situation of the people around us and try to figure out how to increase the net happiness of the world. Purely selfishly, I might add: we just happen to like looking at happy, free, and self actualized people more than we like looking at sad and desperate people.

So this is good. A rare win-win-win situation. She gets more affirmation that she is sexually attractive, and that she is desirable as a partner. He and I get a geek friend. He gets some positive experiences working though relationship issues, and a role model, nay advocate, to show him how it's done. I get another opportunity to see where I'm still weak.

Weak? Okay, I'm jealous. And envious. She's getting some of the best sex of her life! How can I not be a little of both envious and jealous? Yes, she and I have had whole weekends together where all we did was fuck, maybe ten or fifteen orgasms for me, and who knows how many dozens for her. And I have had numerous incredibly hot sexual experiences before we got married, unlike her. But the primal feelings are still there.

For all his six foot sevenish masculinity, and his impressive girth if not length (it's far more important!), he hasn't had nearly the depth and breadth of sexual experience I've had. Also, I'll admit that Jenny is the best fuck I've ever had, but some of the things he's impressed by just lead me to believe that he has been with some pretty boring girls, overall. So intellectually I don't begrudge them their fun. But on a primal level it challenges me more then her relationship with poor can't get hard, average sized Mr. Y. ever did.

However, I think I mentioned before that I thought Merril would make a great wingman? All three of us talked about it, and we may all go out soon and try to get me someone new. Last time we were out at a bar together, he was a little pissed off because Jenny was feeling in third place intellectually, so he started pointing out all the girls who were checking us out. "Oh, look at that one, she's totally looking at you, dude, and her friend has been scoping me out! What do you think?"

So he obviously has wingman skills, and if a girl asked about my ring I could say, yeah, ask my wife if it's okay. She's over there with her boyfriend.

P.S. I just reread this JE, and yes, I'm a little drunk and that's why it rambles as it does. Sorry.

So Merrel was over tonight. I don't think he would mind me using his real name, and it is less awkward than the whole "Mr. M." convention. He's not skittish and weird like Mr. Y. He and I hit it off great. In fact, that's the problem.

Jenny is jealous of our intellectual connection. There's more to it than just that, of course. She lived as a fag-hag in San Francisco for so long, and has had so many guys stolen from her by other guys, that she's a little wary when two guys she likes connect.

We were just geeking out, and I have been hit on by enough guys to know the difference, but she felt threatened. Part of it is the fact that, intelligent as she is, her main thrust of intelligence lies in areas different from those traditionally respected as such. You know. Liberal Arts. There, I said it. Get a liberal arts type in a group with science types and they are all like, "No really, my knowledge has relevance!" I tried to mollify the situation, but he's one of those guys who has obviously been hurt by women almost one too many times. So he's nervous because she is acting a little weird.

I say "almost" because if a guy has been hurt too many times by women, it really can turn him "gay." Some guys are born wanting cock. Some guys are thrust into it. Everyone is a little bi, I think, and just like in prison, if you can't get what you need from a preferred source for whatever reason, you'll get it from the next best place.

He's not gay at all. He likes the same things about Jenny that I like. She's got curves like a woman, not like a prepubescent boy. So he listens to Abba and likes musicals, he can't be the only straight guy to do so.

I have real reason to try to make all this work. I like Merrel. I don't know that many geeks who have a surfeit of other geeks in their lives and that kind of intellectual connection is as fun as sex. So I don't want to make my wife jealous of me and the 6'7", hung like a horse guy she's fucking. That's more ironic than a black fly in your chardonnay.

Well, everyone predicting this Mr. Y. thing wouldn't work out, you were right. He turned out to be a lost cause. But, wouldn't you know, something better turned up: Mr. M. Six foot six, built like a linebacker and hung like a horse. He and Jenny have GREAT sex, from what I hear. And he's not weird, in fact, he and I hit it off perfectly on first meeting. He's very respectful, not very needy, and potentially a great wingman for me getting some strange of my own. He's brilliant, and a great big nerd to boot, a mathematician to be exact. Funny coincidence, my first polyamorous experience was with my girlfriend of the time, Jenny (different Jenny) and a mathematician named Lee.

Jenny and I have been going to individual therapy and couples counseling. Our relationship has never been stronger, and our sex has never been better. Work is going great, got a great review and a raise. About the only thing stressing me out is Jenny's sister. She's still living with us and shows no signs of looking for another place. She's demanding and selfish and expects everyone around her to entertain her. And she is always there, so Jenny and I have a hard time finding the time or privacy to really connect. Well, it's time to have a talk with Rachael.

Okay, if I don't mention the whole polyamory thing, just assume it's going well. I've got a ton of other stuff I've been wanting to write here, so enough about all that for now.

Jenny's sister is getting in to town tonight. She's going to be living with us for a while. She just graduated college with a double major in Journalism and Political Science. Now Albuquerque may not be a hotbed of journalistic action, but it's better than Bloomington, Indiana.

I doubt she's going to get a very good journalism job here, but that's not the point. The point is she needs to get the hell out of Indiana and see some of the rest of the country. Jenny and I have been thinking about moving to Seattle in a year or two, and Rachel could actually do pretty well there, journalism-wise. For now, she's got some web design skills that can pay the bills, and she can do some freelance work.

It will be nice having another smart, free thinking, well educated person to talk to. Rachel used to be a bit of an annoying know-it-all, but she's calmed down a bit after graduating and having to live in the real world for a while.

I've said she should start blogging, but she's very old-school. I've tried to tell her that traditional journalism is dead, but of course being young, she thinks she'll be the one to single handedly rescue the field from ignominy. The problem is that there are no real outlets for investigative journalism these days. News is entertainment, a way to sell eyeballs to advertisers. It doesn't matter how good a journalist you are if the owners and editors are all bent on ladling out pablum to the masses.

Poor kid, I wish her luck.

What a great weekend! Mr. Y. and Jenny and I spent the entire weekend together. We hung out Friday night, just talking well into the next morning. It started out with some political discussion, and we are all very much on the same page politically. Then it got into some very deep philosophical discussion. I kinda blew his mind a little. But the best part is when the conversation turned to personal matters. Jenny and I started discussing some of the work I want to do on myself, anger issues, my family and things like that. My opening up like that, and talking about myself in such a non defensive way encouraged him to as well. Jenny said (with only a tinge of jealousy) that he had said things about himself that he'd never even shared with her. Funny thing, Mr. Y. and I have some very similar childhood experiences.

The more I connect with him, the more I like him. This feels so much more balanced. Even Jenny opened up and shared stories I'd never heard in seven years together. We really bonded emotionally. We'd only planned to hang out Friday night, as we had some chores to do Saturday, but we all had such a great time, we ended up just hanging out all weekend.

We fooled around some. This was the second time all three of us have been sexual together. The first time we were hanging out on the couch last weekend and somehow Jenny's skirt and panties disappeared and he was fingering her while I was kissing her, until she got off, and that was that. This time, we all went to the bedroom and it went quite a bit further.

I'd always wondered how he would react, if it would be scary or embarrassing for him because of his ED issues and the fact that he's never before been sexual with another man present. Well, earlier it had all come out that, yes, we all knew each others dirty little secrets, and we were really all okay with that. But in situations like these, ask if you aren't sure. Negotiation is key. So I asked him, "Mr. Y., I really want to have sex with her now, is that okay?" and he said yes, and it was very good.

Both Mr. Y. and I like being dominant during sex, and Jenny loves being submissive. One of the reasons that I've wanted this is that sharing a woman like that is very dominant. Saying what you're going to do to her, or telling the other guy what to do, that's very very hot. BDSM is all about control and power. Specifically, playing at loss of control and taking of someone else's power, when it is really sharing of control and power.

Well, I don't want to get into too many details here, suffice it to say that Saturday was a lot of fun on a different level than Friday night. Sunday we all just hung out and watched movies and didn't really talk much or fool around. It felt like being with old friends, just very comfortable and safe.

Mr. Y. said I was one of the most amazing person he'd ever met. He said he really liked me, and that he felt more connected to me than to his own family. Jenny was amazed, and I almost think I detected a hint of jealousy that he opened up to me like that when he was so closed and defensive with her.

I need a close platonic male friend, and he needs one even more. There's still plenty of opportunity for this all to go horribly, horribly wrong, but it is looking more and more like my initial assessment is right on the money. Things are going how I wanted them to in the beginning.

Jenny put my ring back on my finger today. It's her thirty second birthday today. She begged me not to get her anything so I got her a card that plays a clip from "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)." She loved it. Her real present, and the reason for the title of this JE: she and Mr. Y. are giving it a go as friends with privileges.

He's redeemed himself quite a bit, and restored my faith in my ability to asses character. He admitted that he'd sabotaged things with Jenny out of hurt and fear. He admitted to projecting about the alcoholism issue. He apologized for treating her poorly and acknowledged that he was not ready for a partnership. He agreed that it would be better if we all could be friends and hang out, and said he would try. He said he was comfortable with the fact that I would come first, and he and Jenny would see each other a couple times a week.

Now that's what I wanted from the get go. And he lives in the same apartment complex, but all the way over at the other side. In a much better apartment. With air conditioning. And he hasn't had time to bachelorize the place yet. So it's a place Jenny feels comfortable being and she can get there and back on her own, an issue as she doesn't drive. We could all hang out there and not have to shift piles of bachelor crap to sit.

He got some side work and can in theory almost double his income, which would put him in my income bracket. I do not mention this out of crass materialism, but because of the self esteem issue. And it helps Jenny too, again, not because she is a gold digger, but because she wants the people in her life to live up to their potential.

We paid for the moving, renting a truck and paying Malcolm's brothers $90 to help. We ate the cost of the first two weeks' rent on this apartment. We ate the deposit on his apartment. We gave him $200 for the inconvenience of luring him out of his rat hole, upturning his life, and then dumping him.

So, he gets a better apartment and better, more fulfilling work to pay for it, he makes out like a bandit, and gets a fuck buddy with no strings attached. Hell, she's pulling for him to get an actual girlfriend and won't be too sad if the sex has to stop. In fact, he's on a bit of thin ice in that department anyway. He may have redeemed himself, but he still has some work to do if he wants to stay in our lives as more than just a friend.

Really all he has to do is be the guy he fronted as in the first month of this whole cartoon train wreck. You know the train wreck where the train careens off of a broken track, barrel rolls, and ends up right back on the tracks again? That's the one I mean.

The Beatles "Because" just came up on my Winamp random shuffle. The line "love is old, love is new" played right as I wrote that last bit. I love my life. I just need to learn to trust a little more, and have a little, teeny-tiny bit more patience.

Now, lest you, dear reader, think we are deranged, moronic, or merely naive, I should explain that Jenny and I have a plan. We got a hotel room Wednesday night, I took Thursday off, and we hashed shit out. And had a lot of sex, but that's beside the point. We really analyzed where our relationship had gone off track. We apologized for old crap we really had never come completely clean about. We stated shit clearly, and listened without defensiveness.

We're going into couple's and individual therapy. Well, Jenny already is in therapy, though she hasn't been since we broke up as she didn't have the money to pay for it herself, and wouldn't put that onto Mr. Y. We both know our issues, both individually and what we have to work on together, and we both can open up to a paid therapist easily, so therapy should be very productive. We're basically going in with the attitude, this is what we think we have to work on, what do you think? And what are some concrete, productive behavior modification techniques we can use here?

She needs to work on forgiving and letting go. We both have some family issues to deal with, nothing horrendous, but neither of our families were the Cleavers. Hell, I haven't talked to my dad in several years. Neither of us can be bothered to try any more, I guess. I've got anger issues. It's something I was just starting to work on in re-evaluation counseling and with Meg when she broke up with me. Then Mark swept me off my feet and carried me off just to dump me in LA five moths later, and I never got back into RC. It's a bit cultish for my tastes, despite it's potent techniques and old school class war slant.

You know? I think four years without Rainbow Gatherings had something to do with my retreat from my self. A contributory influence, anyway. I still feel so good, so clear, focused, and in touch with myself. Looking back, I contributed a lot to the final jumping of the track. I became needy and demanding. Bitchy, even. It was harder for me than I let on. I knew better! I've been through infatuations. We talked about "New Relationship Energy" at Poly Paths in Hawaii all the time. I didn't give them enough space. Not that I blame myself completely.

Blame is a lame game, anyway. Four Agreements theory, developed millenia ago in the Americas by Smoky Mirror: a three part mental virus has invaded our minds through our childhood belief acceptance mechanisms. The Judge piece places judgment on every moment based on the Book of Law piece, and the Victim is punished whenever the universe, including the self (and vice versa, it's semantically equivalent anyway) fails to live up to the belief system encoded in the Book. The part of the Book that is the same across most viral belief systems is that blame is good. That's how most of them spread.

Judge not lest ye be judged, but we're all guilty of original sin, WTF? Bad virus. Bad, naughty virus. But I digress.

Anyone reading this far, I apologize, but that's just how my mind works: I go off on tangents all the frickin' time. I'm not writing this for you anyhow. What are you doing reading my journal anyway? Perverts. You know, I do try to rein it in a bit and not go all stream of consciousness on your asses, because I have a special fondness for perverts.

One problem in our relationship has been our sex life. And I'm a lot to blame. I never spent a lot of time around any positive male role models growing up. Moving around a lot as a kid, I picked up a kind of natural mimicry, taking on the vocal mannerisms and body language of the people around me. And the person I spent the most time around was my mom, soooo.....

I come across as gay. I just learned this, can you imagine? Now, I've tried it. Given it a fair go. I don't particularly like cock. I mean, it's nice for the kink factor, but it gets old for me. I especially don't like men's bodies. I like curves. But when I'm "being myself" I fall back on mannerisms I picked up from my mother, not my father, and I come across as gay. I wondered why gay men were always hitting on me. I guess no one's really had the courage to tell me up till now.

But the beauty part is that I'm not attached to any particular marker of self. Well, a few of the so-called better self judgments still, to my shame. Judging yourself as better is judging something in the universe as worse, and the only one you have to punish for that egregious fucking error on the universe's part is yourself. Oh fuck, let down by reality again, what a bummer. Why does that keep happening?

I'm a natural mimic and Jenny is a genius acting coach. We went over a few things in specifics in the hotel. I'm far too expressive, men are macho and stoic. I walk like a girl, I should walk without bouncing so much. I cuddle up to her, rather than grabbing her and pulling her to me. I'm too tentative in seducing her and too hurt by rejection. So I've got a few pointers now, and it seems to be working.

It was a nice thing, getting my self confidence and self direction back before getting that call from Jenny. The call was nice, too, what with the abject apology and all. She has been especially nice to me. I've been especially nice to her, in ways she likes. Communication has always been our strong suit. When we put our minds to it, and we don't let our hurt get in the way, we can really communicate openly and honestly about anything. Now we've talked about the things we'd never had the courage or presence of mind to talk about before, things built up over years, and we have a commitment to work on them with professional assistance. I'm cautiously optimistic. But then, I'm nearly always cautiously optimistic. Unless I get attached to outcomes, that's a big no-no.

It's Jenny's thirty-second birthday. We hooked up a little over seven years ago, right after the Rainbow Gathering in Montana. She is with Mr. Y tonight. They both had to ask many times if that was all right. The three of us appear to be communicating better. Well, baby steps in the right direction are still steps in the right direction.

It's the least I can do, I have been very lazy in recent years. I've put a lot on Jenny, made her my entire emotional support structure, which isn't very healthy. I need to branch out a bit. Breaking up with her and going to the Rainbow Gathering has done a lot to remind me of the man I used to be, but I'll still have to be vigilant of backsliding and actively seek out new behaviors and situations where I can get my needs met outside of my marriage.

It's not like I need a lot. I need to be involved in a group effort that motivates me, that I can feel good about. I need to connect with people on a heart to heart level. And I need a certain amount of physical affection. Not necessarily sex, quite frankly numerous hugs are enough to at least comfort and silence the adorable little animal part of my nature. At Rainbow, all these things are just right there, within easy reach.

But I've had that in Babylon, as we call the outside world at Gatherings. Almost always in a joking manner but, you know, it is a diverse group and for some people it is their entire life. It's not hard to find if you seek it out instead of obsessing over the problems in your relationship, many of which are directly caused by said obsessing.

Ah, who am I kidding with the cautiously optimistic. This is a high water mark in our relationship. We needed the break. She needed to remember what she was actually giving up, and what she was potentially getting. She's never ridden that roller-coaster before, all her crushes have been unrequited disasters with men of, how to put this? indecisive sexuality. Then me. Then Mr. Y., who does not only talk a good talk but can pull something remarkable out of a rather distressing set of life experiences now and then. She was a little naive, relationship-wise. Now she's much less so.

I needed to remember who I am. I don't blame myself for collapsing into her after the fucking unstoppable whirlwind roller-coaster of a life I've had. Security is for suckers, though. And so is believing any of your own ramblings.

Because it all has to mean something, doesn't it? Because if it doesn't mean anything at all outside of what it is and what we've arbitrarily made it in our minds, then what the hell is self for anyway? And then we'd have to just look at what it is and not what we think it means. That scares the hell out of most people. Not knowing means death to the ego self. It thinks it bears full responsibility for creating order out of the raw chaos of reality and thus ensuring the survival of the meatware. That is actually a dangerous vanity.

Well cheers! Here's to staring into the void. Amusing, entertaining, endlessly thrilling, where there is no definition, division or partition and therefore, there are all of those things because not-this is a definition too. In that raw undifferentiated state that is the root and the resting place of all conscious moments, all concerns of the self are as one with all else. Subject and object are one and all that nonsense. It's a fun place to visit but I still can't live there, what with the draftiness and all.

Okay, sorry for the cliffhanger! Jenny and I are giving it another shot. The last few days with her have been like old times: easy, fun and comfortable. Now, we aren't making any grand predictions on whether it will work or not, but we have a plan. Couples and individual therapy for both of us. We've mapped out specific issues that we need to work on. Our little break has also helped defuse some pent up crap we've both been holding on to. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

So what happened? Why the about face? Mr. Y. showed his true colors. He had come across as someone who had been through hell but come out the other side stronger and wiser. Truth is, he'd never come out the other side. He has absolutely no capacity for introspection, all he knows how to do is hide. As soon as he thought he had Jenny, all the hurt and neediness came pouring out. Plus, he has absolutely nothing to bring to the table. He makes about half what I make. He can't cook, he doesn't know how to clean, and he isn't handy. He's physically much weaker than I am. He oscillates between two modes, pent-up stoic and crying, raving loon. He won't consider therapy. Then there's the illness, turns out he's also bulimic. Plus the ED issues. And he won't do anything about any of it except take klonopin.

Now Jenny has been brutally honest about herself from the get go. She told him she gets emotional. She explained exactly what she wants from a partnership, and what she can bring to the table. He presented himself as someone who could meet her needs, and he simply can't. Jenny has never been through a requited infatuation before. I tried to warn her. Well, now she knows: when infatuated, don't trust what your heart is saying, and don't trust what the other person is saying. Give it time and the truth will come out.

The truth, in Mr. Y.'s case, is that he is a freaking mess. And prone to abuse. He told her that she liked getting in fights and being humiliated. He wouldn't let her set a safe word when they played rough, for fuck's sake. That's a deal breaker right there, in my book. He drinks like a fish and does stupid things while drunk. Jenny does not need to be around someone who drinks that much, she has enough trouble staying in control while drinking as it is, she doesn't need anyone egging her on. The funny part? He yells at her about being an alcoholic. He called her, drunk off his ass, and told her she had to stop drinking. How out of touch can you get?

He has extreme difficulty apologizing or admitting he is wrong. He claimed to be comfortable with her emotions, and he simply isn't. He has no drive, being essentially stuck in the same life situation for the last ten years. He has no friends. He doesn't know how to negotiate fairly. He can't honestly look at what he's feeling, what he's capable of giving, or what his real motivations are. In short, he's about as far away from partner material as it's possible to get and still function in the world.

Jenny admits to being too much of a princess. She's learned a lot about deescalating arguments, because she had vowed not to make the mistakes with him that she made with me. Even when I was furious with her during the break up, she stayed calm. She's vowed to make it a habit.

Jenny has also let go of her attachment to her emotions. She's identified with them all her life. Being an actress, she felt that being true to her feelings was crucial. Now she has figured out that being true to her feeling does not mean letting them control her. Feelings are like puppies. They need discipline to be secure, or they will run amok. We can acknowledge and respect our feelings while controlling them and letting them out in appropriate ways, in appropriate settings.

As for me, well, I need to let things go. I need to be more forthright and not bottle my feelings up trying to be the strong one. I need to assert myself more. Trying too hard to make this relationship work had turned me kind of girly, and that is a big turn off for Jenny. The same thing happened with Mr. Y. only much more quickly. Jenny realized that she needs certain things in order to be turned on.

We've talked about this a lot, and it's mostly subtle stuff. She'd like it if I wore cologne and deodorant. My 'sexy faces' aren't, at all. For her, sexy means stoic, manly. Not girly goo-goo eyes. I shouldn't snuggle up to her, I should pull her to me. During seduction, I need to touch her deliberately and slowly. I've been too grabby and unfocused. I also, and this is a very common complaint with women, need to spend more time on the build up and not go straight for the erogenous zones. In bed, my technique is top notch, but my seduction and foreplay techniques need work. No problem.

My mom is ecstatic about us giving it another shot. Her mom is happy if we're happy. Her dad is still mad at her. Her friends will probably secretly think she's an idiot. My friends will probably tell me I'm an idiot to my face. But at least I've always presented a balanced picture. I've asked her, and she's admitted she has a tendency to vent with her friends without putting things in perspective. Damn. I'd always wondered why they all were a bit stand-offish towards me. I told her, if they think you're an idiot, it's because you've never told them about the good side of our relationship.

Mr. Y. did not take the news well. He went on a two day bender and didn't go in to work. Actually, she broke up with him before she had any kind of confirmation from me that I would take her back. But in his mind, she's weak and cowardly and went back to me because of the money issue. Hah. She never wanted him to make more money, she just didn't want him coming home every night and crying like a baby because his job sucks so much.

We re-switched our leases yesterday. He couldn't even talk to us while we were signing papers. He wouldn't even take off his sun glasses. I feel sorry for him. The whole thing makes me so sad. I did not want things to go down this way. He tried to break Jenny and I up, telling her he couldn't take the polyamory thing. Not that he ever told ME that, of course. After I had made my peace with the situation, I tried to keep the two of them together, telling Jenny to go easy on him, to give him a chance. But in his mind, I'm an angry violent jerk and she's an idiot for going back to me. Sad.

People who have never been really don't understand the Rainbow Gathering. That's okay, plenty of people who have been don't understand it either. Folks think it's just hippies, it's not. For instance, there are two Jesus camps that come every year, the 'purity' Jesus camp, and the camp Jesus would actually want to hang out in if he came back. The Jews pack their strict and lax sects into one camp. The Baha'i only have one camp as well, while the Hare Krishnas have had up to three different camps some years. There's a twelve step camp, fer cryin' out loud. And Fairy Camp is not a bunch of happy hetero hippies with fairy wings on. So, you know, Rainbow is not all one thing.

There are two major types that come, though. Hippies and Crusty Punks. How to tell them apart? Hippies like The Dead (still!), String Cheese Incident, & Phish. Crusty Punks like The Misfits, The Dead Kennedy's, and Crass. Hippies have dreads. Crusties have shaved heads. Hippies have tattoos of Buddha. Crusties have tattoos of Rat Fink. Hippies say "We love you, brother!" Crusties reply, "We tolerate you."

Then there are the people like me, or Rob Savoy, or Hawker, or Calamity Jane, who don't really fit any category. Actually, we're in the "hardcore" category, people who go to Rainbow primarily as a form of service, who work our asses off, who don't have a big ego or an agenda to push. You can tell the hardcore kids because we don't have an official outfit, but we all have a ton of gear strapped all over, we generally look tired but happy, and we are often found discussing the finer points of duct taping people to trees.

There is one last type. The Rainbow Elders. There is no heirarchy at Rainbow, it's Anarchy. Only, there is a heirarchy at Rainbow, and everyone knows it. People who have been doing it for 35 years are in a class of their own. They generally don't do much of anything except sit around, smoke pot, tell us all what to do, bitch about the fact that we never do what they tell us to, and complain about "kids these days." They can often be found in our consensus decision making circles because they actually have the patience for it, and would rather sit around and make decisions that someone else will have to carry out than just getting off their asses and doing it. But we love them anyway.

The LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers: covers rangers, wildlife officers, sheriffs, ATF agents, and various other authority figures) were pretty bad this year. They were ticketing women for going topless on main trail. I'm sorry, but I think most everyone in that damn forest was in agreement that we like seeing topless hippie chicks. We really don't need to be protected from boobies. I don't believe I have ever felt in any kind of danger from a breast. They were also towing cars that weren't ALL the way off the road, and ticketing people for drug possession. It wasn't the worst I've seen, but it was pretty bad.

Now, I'm going to hand out a little TMI. I had the opposite problem that I usually do this year. I was constipated. Normally at Rainbow, what with the constant bleach water disinfection, the beans and rice diet, and the questionable water, I get a bit... loose. I think my bowels remembered Rainbow, and preemptively clenched up. So I didn't have to use the trench shitters as often as some years, thankfully.

It's not exactly fun. We dig them close, but not too close to kitchens, off in the woods with some privacy, but you will still find yourself squatting over an 8 inch wide trench with some crusty chick on one side and some hippie guy on the other. No privacy. So, you go, sprinkle on some ash or preferably lime to keep the flies out, a little dirt, then use the bleach hand wash hanging from a nearby tree. If you're squeamish, you may be able to find one or two shitters with tarp covers and seats, but you'll be waiting in line for half an hour with all the other squeamish types.

So where was I in my little narrative? The 3rd, the night we did the gong show. I headed over to G-Funk, even more intent on plugging in there now that my friends Jason and Jessica were there. Everyone was still pretty freaked about the meningitis. I'd gotten some more info from my contacts at CALM. That's when we learned it was bacterial, not viral, and thus a lot more transmissible, although easier to cure. But no one from either CALM camp had seen anyone with either of the major symptoms. And the incubation period is 4-72 hours, and the woman who had it had been out of the gathering for over 48 hours, so we were really almost past the crisis point.

Aaron presented a volunteer project he and the G-Funk crew had been coordinating, and I was impressed. You see, at Rainbow we've got the skills to go into a situation with no infrastructure, not knowing what kind of equipment or food is going to show up, or when, or even which people, and we make food happen in large quantities. We can handle complete chaos and lack of coordination without batting an eye. Now, there is another situation where those kind of skills are invaluable: disasters.

Aaron has been taking Rainbow know-how to disaster sites like New Orleans and Wavelands for several years now, and this last year he has been networking like crazy with local, State and Federal agencies. They know us now, and they know that we know how to get things done. He is trying to expand and looking for volunteers. Well, I've been looking to volunteer for something I believe in, so this could be a good fit for me.

After, we prepared for the next show: the Gong Show. That's our anti-talent show. You go on stage, you will be gonged whether you've got talent or not. So if you actually have talent, best to wait for the Fourth, when we do the real talent show. Aaron and the other regulars were still a little freaked about the meningitis, so they asked if anyone else wanted to MC the show, and I volunteered. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I turned out to be very good at MCing a Gong Show and making snarky comments about the performances. The audience laughed a lot, anyhow. Whenever we'd run short on suckers^Wperformers I would whip out my worst cow and elephant jokes to torment the audience with until someone volunteered. "Ha HA! You can't gong me, I'm the MC! And I WILL keep telling bad jokes until someone gets down here and makes a fool of themselves."

On the Fourth, the way things are supposed to work anyway, we have silence in the morning. People assemble at main meadow around the peace pole and silently pray for peace. Around noon, the kids from Kiddie Village parade in, dressed in cute costumes they all made that morning. The kids give a shout, we do our om, then it's a wild crazy party with lots of drums.

Only, it never actually works that way. In all my years, I have only once seen the kids make it all the way into main meadow and give a shout before the om. This year we didn't even have a meadow, we a had a rocky peninsula in the middle of the overflowing creek. People were circled up in the water. The kids made it almost to the bridge before the om. The one nice thing was the fact that, after dancing up a storm, one could go jump in the creek to cool off.

I ate some, um, porcini mushrooms? Well, some kind of mushrooms anyhow, I'm trying to maintain a little deniability here. J & J stuffed them into my mouth after the om. They were on some 2CT7 someone had given them. We all headed off to set up a base camp near G-Funk. I ended up running down to dance several times, they were kind of a hippie puddle in their hammock, 2CT7 being a little more, ah, intense than the amount of fungi I ate, anyhow.

The castle had been trashed by a pack of miniature hippies and crusties who bore a resemblance to something out of "Lord of the Flies," so Aaron and I set about fixing it up. While we were busy working, a hot hippie chick showed up and demanded attention. Aaron and I kind of ignored her, and she said, "Well, if no one is going to talk to me, I'm leaving!" I said, "Hey, nothing personal but as you can see, we're actally working hard here trying to get this place ready for tonight." She stormed off anyway. You know? The majority of really hot people suck.

I had been fighting off the sniffles, I'd jammed my knee carrying a sixty pound pack down a 15% slope, my feet hurt, and the fungi was wearing off. I stayed and helped coordinate acts for an hour or so, then begged off for the night. The next day, J & J woke me up saying goodbye, so I was sad, then it started to rain in torrents again, and I basically said, "Fuck it. I've got water and power bars and a book to read. My knee still hurts and I still have the sniffles. I am not coming out of my tent today." And I didn't, but I finished Vernor Vinge's newest book, "Rainbows End."

Friday, I was feeling much better, it looked like the rain had let up again, and I had two tiny pieces of paper to munch, courtesy of J & J. I did so, and waited for the usual effects. An hour went by. Nothing. Then another, still nothing, and it started to rain like crazy. I went a little "Milton from Office Space" and started muttering, "That's the last straw, I told them. Burn it down!" I packed up my gear, this road punk asked if I needed my tent and I was so intent on getting out, I said "Take it!"

I wasn't angry or that bummed out: just really, really ready to be dry again. I found a pack of crusty punks on the trail out, trying to get to Santa Fe, so I said, "If you can be ready in half an hour, you've got a ride." I had to get a pack of hippies to help push my car out of the mud it had sunk into during all the rains, and it took the kids a while to get ready (I say kids because they were, I think, all under 21.) so I gave rides up and down the hill to folks packing stuff out.

Finally, as we hit the main road out, the damn little pieces of paper took effect, though three hours late and much weaker than advertised, probably from all the dampness diluting things. In the end, it turned out to be just enough to keep me awake and alert through the night, without actually making the road jump and swirl.

It was nice having company for the ride home. They were nice kids, but I felt a bit melancholy. I remember being a kid, on the road, no commitments, no security, perfect freedom. I miss it, and yet I don't. I felt the draw of that freedom, but at the same time, you know, one of them had a hernia and no medical insurance, and that's no fun. The 18 year old girl had lost her only pair of shoes at the gathering. They all had only what they could carry.

All that is fun and adventurous when you're 18, but it's kind of sad and pathetic if you're 36. We left around 9 at night, stopped at the "Ozone Burger Barn," which has the most delicious burgers and the most stereotypical back-woods cousin-lovin' Arkansas family I have ever seen running the place. None of the kids had a license so I ended up driving all night. We pulled into my mom's in Albuquerque around 9 the next morning, because I had to wait until the 14th to move into my new place. They got cleaned up, I drove them up to Santa Fe and dropped them off in a parking lot, seeing as they don't really have homes. I drove back home.

I was just about to fall asleep when I thought to plug in my phone and see if I had any messages. There was one. From Jenny. Saying, "I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I thought the problem was our relationship, but now I have the same issues with Mr. Y. The problem has been me all along! I'm so sorry, and I know you probably don't want me anymore, but I can't stay with him, and I want to give it a second try with you. I miss you so much. I'm going to work on my issues. Call me."

More on that later.

Wow. How I let myself go four years without going to a National Rainbow Gathering, I don't know. This was just what I needed. I feel centered again, like my old self. I lost at least five pounds of fat and put on quite a bit of muscle. My endurance and stamina are much better. I worked my ass off, literally. Working that hard is never that much fun outside of Rainbow.

I left early last Friday. One of my riders had canceled. Well, simply not called me is more like it. The other two called and canceled at the very last minute. So I made the twelve hour drive alone, getting into the Ozarks after dark. Luckily, there was a full moon, so the four mile hike into the gathering was not too bad. My first pack load consisted of clothes, tent, sleeping bag, and pad. Just enough stuff to throw down beside the trail and fall asleep.

The next day, I scouted out the site. It was about three miles from one end to the other. It was pretty linear, like most eastern gatherings that follow a watercourse. Western gatherings tend to be more circular, spreading out from a central meadow. I stopped in at CALM (the Center for Alternative Living Medicine, our med tent.) where I have volunteered many times and was disappointed to find out that one of my exes and two of my best friends wouldn't be there this year.

The site was full of mud and poison ivy. It wasn't as bad as the Pennsylvania gathering, which was also muddy, but had sharper rocks, but CALM still had plenty of foot wounds to deal with. I hiked back out to my car and brought in what I thought was my bag of med supplies, but turned out to be the bag of trade goods. I may have been a little unfocused due to the, um, herbal tincture I took that morning.

I decided that, as my two best friends at CALM were not showing up that year, I would volunteer somewhere else. I had always wanted to volunteer at the Granola Funk theater, because they always seem to have a lot of fun, there are always tons of cute hippie chicks there, and they have their shit together. There are definitely different levels of competency going on at the various kitchens and other groups, with CALM and Shanti Sena (the peace keeping group) at the top and various first time kitchens at the bottom.

CALM and Shanti Sena volunteers often put in 12 to 16 hour days. Me, I try to put in 6 to 8 hour days most of the time, with a few days off. G-Funk doesn't work super hard, aside from putting the stage together the work is mostly at night, performing or facilitating same. I may have been a first-timer at G-Funk, but I still got to produce a skit the first night I was there.

We did our version of The Dating Game on the 1st, with skits in between the rounds. My skit was "Rainbow Rangers," about a new force for peace and wellness, only they are really, really bad at it, offering such advice as a salt and dog poop poultice for deep wounds and vigorous scratching for poison ivy. Then I come out with a snake bite, and the Rangers offer the good advice of sucking the poison out. Only, I got the snake bite in a delicate place, while peeing, so the Rangers say, "You're on your own!" and flee. A cute 30 second skit, and it took me all of a minute to think it up. I rounded up three cute Rainbow sisters (we call everyone 'brother' and 'sister' at the gathering)and we not only pulled it off, it went over very well. Not that it takes any kind of genius to entertain stoned hippies in the woods.

The next day I hiked out for that pack of med supplies I had mistakenly left up the day before. I managed to catch a shuttle, thankfully. Giving lots of donations of, ah, herbal tinctures to the various groups actually doing work has its advantages. I get up to the top of the hill, and run into my two best friends in the whole world. Okay, I have an actual crush on both of them and have for years. Jessica and Jason, you know I love you.

So, my gathering just got ten times better. We hiked back in and I dropped off the med supplies. Seven Song, who runs an herbalism school and brings his students to Rainbow every year as a final exam, roped me into helping him set up a satellite CALM on the far side of the gathering, near the mud-pit we called the loop trail. I helped bring all the supplies over, and then went to G-Funk, which was a few hundred yards from the site of the satellite CALM.

That was when I learned the really scary scary bad thing. We had a case of meningitis at the gathering, and we didn't yet know if it was viral or bacterial. And it came in with a G-Funk sister. All of G-Funk had been traveling, eating and sleeping with this girl. They were pretty scared. Then we found out it was bacterial, the most transmissible. Fortunately, no one else at the gathering ended up catching it, though the CDC showed up to track and oversee.

More about overzealous forest service and sheriffs, the joys of trench shitters, more performances, rainbow crazies, hot naked hippie chicks, and rainbow cuisine in my next JE. I do actually have some catching up to do here at work...

I've always wanted to write a rogue-like. I've been thinking about it recently, and I want to try something new. My idea? A rouge-sim. It would have elements of city building, resource management, and large scale combat as well as traditional rogue-like elements.

I have a whole back story that puts you into the situation. Basically, you were close to the king, screwed up somehow, and got sent along with your trusty sidekick to a remote mountain valley outpost. You can choose your background, which would be one of Soldier, Courtier, Spy, Merchant, or Court Wizard. I want to design a skill based system, something like a stripped down GURPS or D20, but I want people to choose from a set of backgrounds which would have put them in the situation rather than just designing characters willy-nilly.

The outpost starts with a small wooden fort, a construction office, a trade post, a warehouse, and a few farms. The king wants you to settle and develop the valley to secure the kingdom's claims to the strategically important area. The valley is randomly generated every game, and the resources, potential allies, and enemies will always be different.

Some things would be the same. There will always be a 'caves of chaos' main dungeon. There will always be an orc cave, from which random raids are launched. Other things would be random. The presence and location of resources will be random. I'm trying to come up with a list, so far for gatherables I'm thinking wood, stone, iron, copper, tin, gold, silver, platinum, gems, mythril, adamantium, clay, sand, pitch & herbs. For farmables wheat, vegetables, sheep, cows, flax, hops, and grapes. I may pare down these lists.

The outpost would function like a typical resource management sim, except that orders are given by actually walking to a place with your character and placing a building or housing zone. When buildings are placed, construction workers need to take wood or stone from a warehouse and actually build it. I'm envisioning buildings as 2x2-5x5 blocks with doors leading to a function menu, rather than nethack style walled enclosures with stuff on the floor.

The presence of other groups in the valley will be random as well. In each large area of plains, forest, hills, mountains and swamp there may be centaurs, elves, gnomes, dwarves, or goblins, respectively. These could start hostile or friendly, and their attitudes can be swayed through various actions.

Victory conditions I'm considering: time, the weakest win, just survive for X years; Culture, win by creating a large community with lots of culture, ensuring the kingdom's claims to the valley are recognized; Military, remove all relevant threats from the valley; Favor, regain the favor of the king by sending gifts of precious artifacts and fulfilling every request; Fame, become famous enough for your exploits; and finally, the ultra ending, ascend to demi-godhood by completing difficult quests.

The city building and dungeon delving sides play into each other. You need to have trained up enough defenders to meet any threats while you are gone. You can take trained troops into the dungeons with you. More importantly, training your skills requires you to attract experts to the town. You can also attract skilled craftsmen and enchanters and set them to making you custom weapons, armor, and magical items. Some magical items and artifacts found while delving will help or harm the town, rather than you.

All, of course, done with character graphics & turn based, like a normal rogue-like.

Holy crap! Monday through Thursday will pass like a blur. I have to get the tires aligned, I have to go over to my mom's back yard and pitch my tent, to make sure I have all the parts and there are no rips. I need a couple more large tarps, but I think she has some in granddad's old camping supplies. I need a folding shovel, and a hatchet, but again, I think those are all in granddad's stuff. I haven't been in four years, and when we moved here, I got rid of a lot of gear. Jenny hates dirt, so she hates camping, so she hates Rainbow.

One thing I'll need to buy, a folding garden cart with bicycle wheel. I've seen them in catalogs, that would be perfect for carting crap 3-5 miles into the gathering. I also want a one burner propane stove. Granddad had a two burner Coleman, but that's a lot of extra weight and more importantly, space.

You see, I have three riders. A 28 year old single girl from near Taos, and a couple from Albuquerque with a medium sized dog. I didn't say anything, but Rainbow encourages people not to bring their damn dogs. Dogs spread disease. Dogs fight each other. Dogs bite people. They bark constantly. I love dogs, and taking your own dog camping is fun, but taking your dog to a place where there are 20,000 people and at least 1,000 other dogs: not such a good idea.

I asked them how much stuff they have, and it's a backpack plus, each. I have a Subaru Imprezza station wagon, so we should be able to fit everything without resorting to putting stuff in a travel bag on the rack. Seeing as I don't have a travel bag for the rack, I hope we can fit it all and save me $60 for a decent waterproof carrier.

That is because I want to spend most of my discretionary funds on trade goods. Rainbow operates on voluntary donation and barter. Cash is only for magic hat, which buys food for everyone, and gas for couriers and scouts. The best barter items are packs of smokes, batteries, and candy bars. Seriously. You would not believe what a hippy will barter for a candy bar after ten days without.

I also need to put together a first aid kit. I definitely need some vitamins, some fiber supplements, some antacids and anti-diarrheals. Rainbow food, and sharing the great outdoors with tens of thousands of untrained campers can be... scary at times. Things spraying out of both ends scary. Add to that band-aids, ointment, a splint and ace bandages, a bunch of sunscreen, and some stuff to make dehydration fluid. Lemons, salt, & honey. Works better than Gator-Aid when you mix it up right.

A paper notebook & pen for putting up notes at Information. That's our creative name for the managerial level focal group that takes care of day to day business such as coordination of groups, information dissemination, and individual volunteer assignment. Rainbow is true anarchy in action. While one can raise the critique that it only works as well as it does because it is time-limited, the fact is that it is a complete social-anarchist community that functions impeccably two months out of every year. The number of people on-site varies from five to forty thousand based on proximity to the Fourth of July, and to local large cities with significant hippy populations. This year it's near Austin, so it should be huge.

Hmm, what else? I'm not setting up a full kitchen, or acting as a major liaison for C.A.L.M., or Shanti Sena, or Main Council, so I don't have to bring stocks of medicine, walkie talkies, or a bus full of cooking gear. Let's see: Shovel, hatchet, knife, stove, tent, mat, sleeping bag, tarps, leatherman, flashlight, first aid kit, spare batteries & assorted trade goods, WATER FILTER! That's what I've been forgetting. I need a new pump filter. One does not want to rely on Rainbow's water system. We do our best to set up a good community system, but it is very, very busy and you can end up waiting an hour or more for your turn. I've been meaning to put together a $100 group filtration unit from home improvement store parts, but I've got four full days during which I am also working full time, and I don't think I can pull it off.

The one thing I am really kicking myself for getting rid of is my hand cranked grain grinder. One does not use it for grinding grain, oh no. One uses it for grinding freshly roasted coffee. The swill we usually manage to mass produce at Rainbow is cowboy coffee, made from cheap-ass beans. Cowboy coffee as in cut, tap and sink cowboy kettle coffee, if any of you know the procedure.

I had the sweetest setup. French press, stove-top espresso machine, and espresso milk steamer. A big cast iron skillet for roasting, and a grain grinder for efficient grinding. Those little hand cranked coffee grinders take five minutes to grind enough for four cups of espresso. Three trips through a grain grinder on the finest setting takes at most two minutes, and makes a perfect espresso grind. I bought one from Mexico for twenty dollars, including shipping. I would make batches of lattes in the woods, using reconstituted condensed milk & fresh roasted green coffee beans. It was, as they say, off the hook.

Man, it's amazing what you pare down to when moving via air freight. We arrived here in Albuquerque with eleven large boxes full of stuff. Everything else we sold on the street in front of our apartment in San Francisco, and what was left over, we gave away.

Hmm, anything else? No fishing at Rainbow, or hunting, so no guns or gear. A cooler for snacks on the road, but I have that. AH! Road trip. I need some CDRs for burning custom, Rainbow Road-trip CDs.

I think all three of my passengers have driver's licenses, so, hmm? Twelve hours from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Fallsville, Arkansas. Probably two hours more to the site, as much of the last distance will be on dirt roads. I have to pick one of them up at the train station, say we are on the road by ten at the latest, which means 3-4 hours driving each and we hike in at midnight, which I have certainly done before, and it will be a full moon. Assume it isn't raining, then we won't need to pitch tents, not in the Ozarks in summer. In and asleep by two A.M. It's a long day, but do-able, and I am leaving plenty of wiggle room in the schedule.

Holy crap. I have so many people I haven't seen in four years. Not since the wedding. I shaved my beard and mustache off today, I've had those suckers since I was twenty. I wanted to look older, I guess. Now I want to look younger. Seriously, without facial hair, I look about twenty six. I wonder if they'll recognize me? Jenny just about shit a brick when she saw me at her play last night. Thank FRM's (I'm a heretic, I think It is actually Ramen, not Spaghetti) noodly blessings for good genes. My grandmother was 74 when she died from throat cancer after a life of smoking, drinking, and sunbathing, and she looked fifty. On my dad's side, I have at least two relatives who lived to be over one hundred.

Four hippys and a dog in a Subaru. What a far cry from fifteen San Francisco freaks packed into the back of a rental moving van, like Rob Batista and I did it in the old days. If it was suicide, Rob, and there is an afterlife, I am going to kick your ass for a hundred years. If it was murder, like I think it was, then what can I say? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I could never be the life partner you always wanted me to be. I'm sorry you ended up dating that utterly contemptible person. After Mark, I was not willing to fake it with a man just because I loved them anymore. Your tough luck, I know, but Jenny needed me as much as you did.

I'll take a hike to Fairy Camp and look up some mutual old friends and reminisce about you, how's that? You stupid fucker. You couldn't have me, but you could have had Eric, who was quite frankly more your speed. Or any of a half a dozen other guys who were your equal, if you could have given up your poor-lost-lamb fetish. Whichever way it went down in the end, you have yourself to blame more than me. I never promised you anything more than my everlasting friendship.

You know? I am one of the most loyal and devoted people I have ever met. If you make it into my heart, and I do have good screening mechanisms, there is nothing that will ever dislodge you, and almost nothing that I am unwilling to do for you. That has led to a lot of heartache in my life, not to mention some amount of sexual confusion, but I would not trade the connections I have made for any amount of peace-of-heart on the planet.

Rainbow is going to be very good for me, as it always has been. It restores my faith in humanity. All my personal struggles seem ennobled just by my being a part of it. It gives me hope, and makes the ideals I believe in seem a little less ludicrous.

Looking back on ten years at this site, I can't help but be struck by the fact that I have never, before tonight, read Slashdot while drunk. I came here before it was even Slashdot. Back when this space was Chips & Dips, I made my way here because Malda had written some doofy little applet for a window manager most current slashdot members have probably never even heard of, Enlightenment. I can't even remember what the applet did. Something about sound, maybe? Anyways, I was here way before there were user IDs, let alone a moderation system. The only reason I don't have a lower UID is that I didn't see the need for them when they were introduced. But I have signed my name "spun" here since the very beginning.

Spun was the name I used on spinnweb's Dysfunctional Family Circus, if anyone here remembers that. You can still find my captions from that period archived all over the web, look for DFC 450 to the very end, when Bill Keen personally contacted the site and asked us, please, for the love of his family who are represented in the comic, please would we stop making the incest jokes?

Well it's been ten years. Ten of the strangest and most growth filled years of my life. I went from being a hard core anarcho-syndicalist activist to a fairly conventional divorcee in those ten years. I haven't posted to or read this site continually during that time. There have been periods of up to a year where I haven't even glanced at Slashdot. But I always come back.

So why am I drunk? Good question, imaginary reader in my head. I went out to a bar tonight, that would be why. My mom has a lady's night out every Friday with other single women from Boing-SVS, where she works. I thought it would be a good test, to see if I've still got game. I do.

No! They are not all her age, if that's what you're thinking.

One of the nice things about having a hippy mom who has always tried to be "more of a friend than a mom," as she puts it, is that I can talk to her about anything. One of the only nice things, really. But that's something, isn't it? You know, I might have come out of my co-dependent childhood better off if I'd had any kind of father figure, but I guess no one can have everything.

I had to make sure my pseudo-adopted half brother, Malcolm, the Republican Native American gay ex military guy, would be there. I can't actually hang out with my mom unless both of our lives our going well, it gets too weird. But Malcolm and I are soul-brothers. We have nothing in common except our understanding of the universe.

That's one thing about enlightenment. Well, first, unless you are (and you will know), that word doesn't mean what you think it means. But the point is, we recognize each other at first glance. Or through a sentence or two of writing online. And we can verify, through a short conversation that no one else gets, each other's status. I've met more than one enlightened individual here on Slashdot. I've even met at least one person more enlightened than me. You can tell that, too, and both individuals know where they stand.

Anyway, that is a tangent I won't get into while drunk. The point is, Malcolm is someone I trust.

So I went to this ladies night, and I was charming. I know how to turn it on, and make the person I'm with feel special, when I want to. Chicks dig that. But you can't be too into them, you almost have to create this paradoxical situation where you are totally into them, but you are kind of doing them a favor. I think a lot of that has to do with the state of women's oppression in our society, but it is something real that I have observed and not just stereotyping.

I asked Malcolm afterwards, "so have I still got it?" And he said, "Oh my God! Yes." It was easier because I wasn't really that into any of the women present. I mean, they were cute, and obviously nice people, but you know? No spark. And I am not that desperate that I will hook up with someone I'm not really into. Actually, it's kind of hard to be into anyone right now, with Jenny still so fresh in my head and heart.

So is that bad? Flirting when you have no real intention of following through? I obviously don't think so, or I wouldn't have.

Afterwards, I went back to my mom's place, and we all had a nice talk about the whole breakup thing. We're all going to go see Jenny's new play tomorrow night. I talked about my conversations here at Slashdot, and we all agreed based on our knowledge of Jenny and Yanniq, it was not as bad as some here make out. But we also agreed that their relationship was pretty much dead in the water. She's too much of a princess to be any kind of healer, no matter what I may have taught her.

Yeah, my mom knew about this whole thing from the get-go. I was born into a three way marriage, after all. Jenny's parents didn't know, until I made her tell them during our break-up. Have I mentioned that they are pissed off at her, too? It's ironic, of all the people who know both of us, I am probably the least pissed at her. Now anyway, I let her have it with both barrels when it first happened.

So tonight was a good trial run. I am an attractive, desirable male of the species. There are women out there in similar situations to mine. I'm hopeful. Now, if I were really trying to hook up, I wouldn't have talked about the divorce at all. That is a total game-killer. But one of the women there mentioned hers, so I talked about it a little.

The interesting thing? One of the divorced women there was still very good friends with her ex. Similar situation, as I said. They knew that neither one of them was a bad person, but they just weren't right for each other. She said that she and her partner were better as friends over the last ten years than they ever were as partners. So that lends me a bit of hope, anyway.

The other one had married an abusive partner, and that is always a good reason to leave. Especially if there are kids involved, as in her case. If that line has been crossed with you, how can you ever trust them with your children? She was the one I really turned the charm on for because she was the cutest. But she was a little too square for my tastes.

That will be a major stumbling block for me, I think. There aren't that many individuals who are both complete rebels, and not too fucked up. The kinds of experiences that make a person a rebel also tend to fuck a person up. Unless they are also exposed to the idea of personal, as well as societal responsibility, most rebels aren't going to be able to move beyond the blame game and into something constructive rather than reactionary.

But maybe my exclusive attitude will work in my favor. After all, won't someone like me, but female, also have the same high standards? And isn't it possible that she, like me, will have given a go with someone less than perfect, and had it come to an end? I'm only thirty six, that is not too old to find someone I can actually create a family with, is it? I sure hope not.

I am so looking forward to the Rainbow Gathering this year. I've called people on the ride boards, but it seems most people want to leave earlier than the 29th. I could pull a twelve hour drive by myself, but company would be nice. Once I get there, I have more old friends to look up than I have days to do it in. I know I have mentioned that I met Jenny at a Rainbow gathering. About a day before I met Meg, for whom I left all my activist work behind me, in order to learn how to be a better person.

You know, the year I met the two of them, Meg and Jenny, I was complete in myself, and I did not need a partner. In the two years I went in between the time I broke up with Meg, and the time I hooked up with Jenny, I really wanted a partner, but did not meet anyone I wanted to be with at Rainbow. Even though (or perhaps because?) I felt more desperate than in years prior.

This year, I go with no goal of meeting anyone. I go to reconnect with old friends. I go to renew my faith in humanity. I go to experiment with anarchy in action, rather than theory. If I meet someone there, someone who feels like a soul mate, I won't turn away from the experience. But I'm more looking to find me than anyone else.

Five more days! Then I'm off to explore an alternate reality that exists only because of the freedoms that the country of my birth upholds. I tell myself things like that so I don't hate America. It is something that is almost indescribable to anyone who has never been. One can describe the actuality of Rainbow, the physical acts involved in its existence, but one can not describe the feeling to someone who has never experienced true community.

I go this year in memory of my dead best friend, Rob Batista. You made Rainbow happen in San Francisco every day for fourteen years. The Rainbow Gathering will never forget you.

I had a bad weekend. I suffer from depression, and having my wife leave me has kicked off a serious bout. Slashdot user o1d5ch001 tried to warn me about playing video games and it was really that that kicked off the depression. Video games are like a drug. Using drugs for the right reasons can be fine. Using them to hide from your pain is a sure fire recipe for disaster, and that is what I was doing with gaming. I'm not saying gaming is bad. In its place as a part of a balanced, rich and fulfilling life, video games aren't bad at all. It is when they are a substitute for a rich and fulfilling life that they are a danger, like any drug. And gaming socially is different than hiding away in your room like a junkie and playing.

For those who do not suffer from depression, let me try to describe it. It is not simply being sad. In fact, during a depression, the bouts of sadness are a welcome relief from the crippling numbness. Depression is feeling cut of from everything good inside you and in your life. Nothing motivates. Things that would normally make you feel good feel feel empty and pointless. Even if you know exactly what to do to get yourself out of a depression, as I do, it doesn't help because you have no motivation to get yourself out of it. You can't remember what it even felt like not to be depressed.

I've been eating one meal a day, and that has tasted like ashes in my mouth. I felt nauseous all the time, dread in the pit of the stomach nausea. I couldn't concentrate at work, and all my grand plans for rediscovering myself felt hollow and achieving them felt hopeless. I'm ashamed to admit, I held a knife up to my wrists. No, I would never do that. Suicide is the ultimate in egotistical selfishness. It may end your pain, but it creates far more in others that care about you, so it is a net loss. It is also selling out all your future possibilities. Even if you can't see it at the moment, chances are it WILL get better, and you are wasting that opportunity. So don't worry, I won't. But that is how bad depression can be, it seems easier just to end it. Fortunately for me, I have never really been comfortable taking the easy way out of anything.

Is that a paradox? If it was the more comfortable way for me, wasn't that then the easy way? What an egotist I am some times.

Jenny had asked to spend the night Tuesday so that we could talk and figure out where we both go from here. Monday, I had a bit of a breakdown and called her in tears. She feels awful and she really, really wants to be my friend. She listened and said that Tuesday, she would be there for me to vent and process as much as I needed.

Now, I'm going to be revealing a bit more about Mr. Y. I know, I said I wanted to respect his confidentiality, but Jenny admitted to me near the end of the night last night that despite his assurances that he was okay with our polyamorous situation, he was not. He had asked her to leave me. Sorry Mr. Y., but in my book that kind of cancels out any implicit deals we had. I'm still not going to reveal his name, but I'm no longer concerned if this gets back to him. I actually want it to work between him and Jenny, if you can believe that. But last night I downgraded their chances of making it a year from 70% to 30%, as I found out a lot of things he'd been hiding from both of us.

Mr. Y.'s major problem is his childhood. I had a difficult childhood. More so than average. I've heard some stories from my friends that top mine, but his takes the cake, the presents, and the magician, then runs off and feeds them through a wood chipper, spraying the children with a bloody mist of shredded happy birthday. He had the worst kind of hippy trailer trash parents. They left him in an orphanage as a baby, then came and got him. They would go off and leave him alone with his slightly older sister for weeks at a time as a young child. Once, she stabbed him. I won't go into all the details of the physical and mental abuse, lets just call it horrific and leave it at that.

The only adult relationship he ever had was at the age of twenty four. Ten years ago. She was, by his account, a horrible, ball-busting, demanding princess, fat and ugly to boot. Jenny is a little overweight, but this girl was 250. And SHE left HIM. He felt no reason to live, retreated into a shell for ten years. Four years ago his body tried to tell him he needed to do something to fix that shit, by coming down with a horrible psycho-somatic disease. He wakes screaming from nightmares and throws up every morning. He is in pain all the time, and is on several different medications. The side effect of that is impotence.

Jenny is his one last shot at redemption. The man has a bachelor's in psych, he should see what's going on, yet he refuses to go into therapy. He's built himself a rut, but it's not even comfortable. But I'm actually getting ahead of myself here, because we didn't talk about him at first.

The night started out with the first official ritual of our breakup, signing over the lease. I got an apartment in the same complex, because I am still going to be good friends with Jenny. She has made that very clear to him, and of course he has said he is okay with that. Of course he is not. He was there, but he brought a check stub without any information on it. Did I mention he works at an awful failing small business with a crazy boss, and that he comes home in tears every night because of it? This was all shit he hid from Jenny while wooing her. Well, not the bad job part, the coming home crying part.

He went home, and Jenny and I did a thorough post-mortem. Anyone going through a breakup would be well advised to do this if they and their partner are capable of doing it relatively dispassionately. Ours went fabulously. We could finally admit to each other all the things that were wrong, and hear the other person's side without feeling defensive. We had settled for each other, and that was what killed our marriage, because neither one of us are truly capable of settling for anything less than all our hearts' desires. We may never find them, but we are the kind of people who have got to be true to our dreams.

Now, by the time I proposed I knew I was settling. It was a conscious decision for me. The wrong one, as it turns out, but conscious. She didn't know that she was settling until much later. She admitted that I had tried harder. But we both felt resentful that the other person wasn't our perfect match. I knew what I was doing, so I took it out on her much less, but my buttons got pushed when she took it out on me, and I would escalate things. I felt resentful that I was trying harder than she was, yet she still felt resentful. In the end, we crossed one too many lines in our fights with each other, one too many times.

She offered to have sex with me, but I had to ask her, does Mr. Y. know? Will you have to lie to him? Yes? Then no. That's one thing you learn through months of weekly polyamory discussion groups. Absolute, complete honesty is imperative in relationships. Now, all this was before I found out that he consciously tried to split us up. After I learned that, I almost said what's the point in being that honorable with him? He wasn't with me and turnabout is fair play. But I can't play the game that way and live with myself.

We had dinner, and Jenny got a bit tipsy. Mr. Y. drinks too, and I warned her last night. I said, "I'll only mention this once unless things get very bad. As your friend, you need to watch that shit. You and he could sink into a really destructive pattern of drinking. That's all I'll say." So that's part of why all this came out about him. but the real reason boils down to his resentment of the situation, inability to admit that, and subsequent passive aggressive crap.

She has been very upfront with him. He has great dreams of marrying her and fathering her children, but she is, to put it mildly, not pinning her hopes on that. She's had a bit of a rude awakening, and on finding all this out I had to give her more of one. The kind of healing that Mr. Y. needs takes YEARS. At least two unless you devote your whole life to it, or get lucky. There are NO quick fixes in personal growth. Change takes time, and it has to come from within.

Now, Mr. Y. has put out the effort in some respects. He's shown a willingness to change and grow, and he took up theater to shake himself out of his rut. That's how he met Jenny, so it turns out: wise move. If anyone can shake him out of this rut, it's her. But he is going to have to step up and be a mensch. He wants to, I just don't know if he has the tools or the time. But you know? I'm rooting for him. This will be the ultimate underdog come from behind victory story of redemption if it pans out. I like stories like that.

I don't want to give the impression that I look down on him. I do pity him a little, is that a form of looking down? I mean, there but for the noodly grace of FSM go I. He and I are a lot alike, and given his circumstances but my genes, I don't know if I could have done as well. You have to throw that, "and my genes" in there, even though they are part of circumstance, because if ALL the circumstances are the same, the outcome is the same. There is no difference between us and our circumstances. It's like that optical illusion of the faces and vase. Both are one thing, though you can see it two different ways.

He had said he was going home, to clean up all the piles of bachelor crap around his place. He got drunk and passed out. She called him three times to say goodnight before he woke up. She starts a new job tomorrow, and this is one of the things about her: she doesn't drive. She is terrified of cars, even as a passenger. She is fundamentally uncoordinated. She crashed the car on her driver's test, and she hasn't driven since. So she had said she needed a ride home. She would take the bus in, but she gets off after him and he lives five minutes form her work. And they are going grocery shopping. He wouldn't commit to picking her up. Like I said, passive aggressive crap and he's trained in psych. He should know better. Ah, who am I to judge?

Anyway, that is when she confessed to all the problems. She doesn't know if it's going to work, but she knows he is going to have to come out of his shell and really be himself if he wants to keep her. She is being up front about that, not passive aggressive. They are signing a six month lease, and her sister is coming out in August to room with them, so if it doesn't work out the two of them can make it on their own.

We made a pact that we would always be there for each other, that we would always be friends, but that we would never get back together as partners. We both think that's the healthiest thing for us. This happened for a reason. It was ugly and painful, but to be honest, if it hadn't happened this way, it wouldn't have and we would still be stuck in a dead end marriage silently resenting the other person, but we are both better than that. We deserve better than that. Our pact is a potential deal breaker for future relationships, we agreed on that too. If a potential partner can't hang with the fact that we are friends, it's not happening. Now, we both know that if we do find another partnership, that comes first in planning, so we may move apart. But there is always the phone, and email, and chat, (Leh turs? What's that?) and we are always going to be at least a small part of each other's lives.

I got what I needed from her last night, and it wasn't sex. It was a pep talk, her telling me how fucking awesome I am, what a great partner I was, how sexy I am, how much of a catch I am. How much I deserve a partner with whom the relationship will not feel like work so much of the time. I feel the same way about her. The thing is, we don't need someone better, we just need someone different. She needs someone who is naturally into theater, and art, and film. I need someone who is into (at least some of) sci-fi, fantasy, RPGs, video games, or the outdoors. Now, we both need someone who shares our political and philosophical outlook on life, and we had that, but that is a necessary condition. It is not sufficient, at least for us. And those people are out there, and they are probably just as desperate to find us. It's a big fucking world, my friends, bigger than any of us can imagine.

I also got confirmation that she would continue to be my friend, that I was one of the most important people in her life. And one of the best things for me, I could see the confidence in her face. She knew it might not work out with Mr. Y., but she wasn't scared. When I met her, she felt no hope of ever finding love. I've gotten her to the point where she has the philosophical and emotional tools to become the person she wants to be.

And seeing that in her, and knowing that I helped her achieve that, suddenly put my problems in the proper light. I was, again, indulging. Wallowing in my pain when I have all the tools to get out. Feelings can be a very good guide to right action, but the conscious mind decides what to do with the feelings. Sometimes it is appropriate to simply let them wash over you and control you. Most times, it is not. I'm not ashamed of my weaknesses, though. To be ashamed is to need to hide, to become unaware, and that is when the darker parts of the mind can take control in unseen ways. And that is not an efficient mode of being.

So, I am rooting for her and Mr. Y. But the sad thing is, there will need to be a lot of growth and change before he and I can be friends, if ever. Not that I have any issues, I've forgiven him. It's just that it's hard to start out a friendship when you stab someone in the back due to neediness and hurt. How can he be real with me with that hanging between us? I know if I had tried to steal someone's wife, no matter how good the reason, I would have a hard time being real with the man I did that to.

I just don't think it will work. If Jenny were stronger, yes. He needs someone more seasoned, like I had with Meg, someone who can really give themselves to his healing process. Because all this crying, sickness, and passive aggressive crap is going to get worse before it gets better. I know how this shit works, healing isn't pretty. And Jenny isn't strong enough. She's fresh out of mensch school herself, as it were. That's less pretentious than calling it enlightenment or self actualization, I think. Or less prone to misinterpretation by people who don't know what those things really mean. Mensch just means a person who does what good people do, a person of integrity and honor.

Now, I'm not claiming anuttara samyak samadhi for myself or anything. No perfect and completely enlightened being am I. I can claim with some reason and conviction to be a conscious traveler on that path. And being a conscious traveler on your chosen path is the very definition of self actualization.

I think that one can make distinctions between say, those seeking the path, those on the path, and those who have internalized the path to the point that it is no longer the path. And amongst those on the path, one can distinguish how much someone has internalized what they have learned. Jenny is a newbie, and Mr. Y. needs at least a junior class guru. Unless he has reserves of inner strength I don't know about. Or he gets lucky and achieves grace, a quite useful concept from Christianity.

Anyway, last night was a good ending to the first phase of my relationship with Jenny. I feel a renewed sense of self worth and hope, I know I'm not going to lose my best friend, and I woke up this morning not dreading having to get through the day. I'm looking forward to the Rainbow gathering. I'm taking six days and two weekends off. I'm feeling less simultaneously desperate and hopeless about finding another partner. In fact, Jenny recommended I play the field and date casually. There are a lot of decent women out there looking for a man like me. She thinks I need to find myself before I find another partner, and not lose myself when I do, like I did with her. I think she's right.