"I'm really tired of smug prosperous people who never had children."
This is the first sentence to a blog post I'm not going to write. I am sick of such people, but I recognize that it is entirely for reasons that have to do with me and not with them. My qualifiers "smug" and "prosperous" should offer some clues.
Speaking of children, I know a woman well into her forties who desperately wants babies. Her husband did not, and she accepted that. But his drinking and general wildness got to be a bit much, and now they are divorced. I saw her yesterday at a fundraising picnic for various local Burning Man camps with her new girlfriend. They announced they had just had a long weekend trying to make babies. This time they were using a real penis instead of frozen sperm. They said the penis was much better. I kept comments about the lucky penis to myself because they deserve to be taken seriously. I truly hope they (and their borrowed penis) found the exercise to be full of pleasure and fecundity.
Speaking of borrowed penises, I went to a meetup Saturday night that turned into a swinger party full of sharing and sex. This was not surprising, as the meetup was for the invited members of a secret Facebook group where they enjoy posting sexually-explicit pictures of themselves. There are some really beautiful people who are into that sort of thing and I met several that night. Eventually I noticed two distinct personality types, though: Open friendly gentle loving people who are easy to get to know; and open friendly &c. people who already know each other and are sort of clique-ish. So while the latter clumped to work out on some young woman or other happily borrowing lots of penises and showed little interest in new people they didn't know, I was happier with the friendly group, a few of whom I knew already. Plus I got my share of the loving feminine attention I crave so much, and my lady wasn't even there.
Speaking of my lady, when I got home from the meetup about four o'clock Sunday morning, she and some friends were happily completing some art projects, and then went away to a DJ party for a couple hours before coming back to pack it all up. It seems DJs (and their friends) lead lives that don't align much with the diurnal. I did not go: I took a nap. (I went to a party at the same house a few weeks ago. It was kind of a fascinating environment, resonant with no norm I'm familiar with, but sadly I haven't time at this stage to spend time writing much about these things.) She came back home at eight and cheerily woke me up and we loaded the truck and trailer with stuff for the picnic. It was held in a park way out in farm country. She sold some works, for which I'm very proud of her. I enjoyed being in the shade of some big old trees and meeting people. It was good.
Speaking of neo-hippies way out in farm country, one of our new-made friends there was an adorable four-year-old boy with white-blonde dredlocks whose parents organize one of the region's pseudo-Burneyish events, Pagan Bunny Burn. It's held way up in Northern California (i.e farm country), up against the coast range west of Chico. I've never been. The child's mother had a nature-based name and was an interesting combination of hardened and willowy, as gentle people who live close to nature are wont to be. I've come to love this new generation of people whom I sometimes dismissively call neo-hippies but who are really good at rejecting what doesn't serve them (e.g. patriarchal religion, mindless entertainment, mass-produced clothing, fancy cars) and making the most of what does (e.g. non-hierarchical spiritualism, silliness, community, do-it-yourself sufficiency).
Speaking of dredlocks, there are opinions flying about that dreds possibly represent inappropriate levels of cultural appropriation, along with cornrows and Indian headdresses. I can see the point but I have to disagree. Wherever they came from, dreds can be incredibly practical. They can be pretty douchey too, depending on who's wearing them; but in those cases, the wear-ee is likely to come off as douchey anyway. I keep thinking of certain young DJs I know. "DJ" is this decade's version of the musician or artist or writer who sponges off as many people as he can while earning his way on charm. I've met a few such and am still (clearly) trying to free myself of pointless judgment.
Speaking of pointless judgment, another personality type in evidence at these picnics is the couple who never wanted children and unintentionally take on a sort of bemused and slightly flummoxed look about them when unexpectedly among them. Not all of these parties are kid-friendly -- most are not -- so suddenly having smalls around is a noticeable difference for certain types. Replacements are, after all, forbidden by Vaal. But I don't care about that. I only get a little annoyed when in conversation it's evident they have no concept of the costs and efforts and rewards and costs of supporting children, which is to say I'm jealous they have more spending money than me and can't appreciate why. There, I admitted it. Not proud of it. Not blogging about it.
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3 comments:
I think it's great when ppl decide not to have biospawn, for whatever reason. Some adopt, some don't. All good. And I am a firm believer in parents keeping kids out of fancy restaurants and theater, where they will be bored and disrupt things. Airplanes? A bit trickier. Sometimes you have to fly with a kid. Ppl should be understanding. After all, there are tons of inconveniences while flying-- bawling brats being just one.
We live in a world of people tho, most of whom reproduce. If someone can't tolerate that, hates ppl, hates kids, they should just move to Antarctica or somewhere and quit their bitching. Or kill themselves. I really dgaf. There is no guarantee that life is supposed to be free from all irritations or your money back. Kidfree snobs are as ridic as the Duggars.
I am very accepting of children on airplanes and even in most restaurants. The crying/screaming child on the airplane distresses me because I want to try to help the child and realize I can't do any better than the poor parents who are (usually) trying their best to ease the child's distress. I use meditation to help soothe my own distress in that sitch.
In restaurants, so long as the parents are trying to teach the child (if it's at the right age for that) manners, I'm happy enough. I enjoy seeing children of a certain age, and let my longing for a grandchild get full play inside my head.
Anthrophobes and the angrily "child free" people irritate the fuck outta me. I don't *wish* for anyone to kill themselves, but I figure that it's sensible for someone who hates humanity to start with #1, there. I mourn suicides only if it's someone who is emotionally tied to me OR if it's some young person who was tormented by others and didn't have the right chemistry to be able to ward off the hate. But someone who is him or herself a hater? Yeah, no mourning there if they did a little cleanup in their own aisle.
But that's grim.
Let's talk about sexy times! I've heard that there are distinct factions in the Swinger communities, that include the sort of closed club sorts, with all kinds of rules about how they interact, and the more free, open, and welcoming sorts. When I've been to swinger gatherings as a single female (the social part, not the later sexual part), the men would be all friendly, the women would go off to flirt with whatever other guys. If E was with me, they'd be very formal and frozen in their interactions. Not so weird, but that really turned me off to that kind of society.
Pleased that your lady is making some $$ with her art.
I meant to research dreadlocks. I don't THINK they came out of continental US slave times with black women, but were island embellishments that became a symbol of the rastafarian religious movement more than a symbol of their personal freedoms while enslaved. ICBW.
I also don't think that blacks are as sensitive to dreads as tribal people are to warbonnets and words related to darker times (like "squaw", for example, or "redskins").
Dreadlocks.org links dreads through rastas and Jamaica but puts the origins further back with Indian she's and yogis. It's spiritual, not resistance.
They did enslave Indians (Eastern), and that's how the influence made it to Jamaica.
It's now mostly associated with Bob Marley and that pop culture, Jah, lions, peace, love, hippies, etc.
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