Yesterday, I said aloud to someone, "I miss Dear Viny." It wasn't the first time I'd said it. It was probably the dozenth time. So, even though I had good reasons for shelving this blog a year ago, and even though some of those reasons are still operative, it's clearly time to give this baby another whirl.
Expect to see posts on Tuesdays, at least on most weeks.
A lot has happened in my life since my last post. Here are a few of the "While Viny Was Out of the Office" relationship-related highlights, in approximately chronological order:
* Cam (my partner of five years) moved into the same co-housing community in which Parker (my husband of twenty-four years) and I live with our 9-year-old daughter. This means we are now officially a domestic trio, and Sienna has three on-site parents. It was very exciting when we got the first piece of mail addressed to ALL of us -- from Parker's sister! One unintended but happy consequence of the move was that Cam's relationship with his wife (who still lives in their old house, with her new partner) improved dramatically, and they are back to being on friendly terms with each other -- which means that she and I are also back to being on friendly terms.
* Parker had a summer romance that began at SOAK (Oregon's regional burn) and ended, more or less, at Burning Man.
* Parker, Sienna, and I all went to Cam's family reunion in Idaho. I think Cam's extended family was a bit bemused, but everyone was lovely to us. Cam's parents in particular went out of their way to make Parker feel welcome (this was the first time they had met him). The only mishap was when Cam's cousin thought Parker was my son. Do I really look *that* much older than the man I married all those years ago? I mean, good grief: we are still the same age as each other!
* Cam and I gave a conference talk together on Sex-Positive Healthcare.
* On National Coming-Out Day, I came out as poly on Facebook. The response I got surprised me. Not only did no one unfriend me, but most of the comments were overwhelmingly positive. Several people who did not feel comfortable commenting publicly wrote me private messages of support and appreciation, and a few of these folks even confessed to feeling like they might be polyamorous themselves. On the other hand, most of my family members (siblings, cousins, etc.) were notably quiet. I'm guessing they all saw the announcement, since it was my most-liked post EVER, but maybe some of them missed it.
* Since I was already on a coming-out-in-public roll, I read from my teenage diary for Mortified -- there were three Portland shows, two of which were sold out, in a theater that seats 400, which means that more than a thousand people know that my biggest fantasy as a fourteen-year-old was that I would be trapped on a tropical island with three other girls and four guys, and not just me and one other person, "because life needs to be interesting." I concluded the performance by announcing that I now lived in an ecovillage with my two partners.
* Oh yeah. The f*cking election. Did that significantly dampen anyone else's libido? For, like, several months?? Cam and I went to Hawaii in December, which helped a little, and then to Spain and Ireland in March, which helped a lot, but man, has it ever been a slog getting back to baseline. Trumplestiltskin is such a turn-off.
* Denali, my 20-year-old, has decided they are gender nonbinary. At first I thought their trans activism (and their new pronoun, which I am still getting used to) was because so many of their friends are trans, but then they came home for Parker's birthday dressed to the gothic nines, in make-up and an evening dress, and announced, "I am a girl." So I have been thinking a lot about gender lately. For example: why is it so much easier for me to say, "My son is a girl" than it is to say, "I have two daughters"?
* There have been all kinds of interesting relationship shifts happening in the lives of family and friends, which I will not detail here, but which will no doubt furnish material for many posts to come. Stay tuned! And, as always, if you have a topic you want me to cover, or you need some Viny-style advice, comment on this post or write me a message!
Flourishes and Relishes,
Viny
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