Welcome to the start of Monk's wild week.

The next 7 days are going to be jam packed as we bust out holiday orders and try to keep our sanity though the liberal application of caffeine and pastry. Don't forget, the last day you can safely place a holiday order and expect domestic delivery before the 24th is WEDNESDAY THE 10th!

Before I refill my coffee and dive back into these orders I wanted to mention something really cool that happened to me yesterday. So Tambo and I are at the Bondage is the Point party last night, sitting back on the big sofa and just taking it all in. Chilling, chatting with friends and watching some of the really fantastic ropework that is Seattle become so well known for in action. At one point my other partner, Matisse, sits down next to me and the three of us just sat back and chatted. No real agenda, just the casual back and forth as they laughed at my bad jokes and swapped fashion horror stories.

Talk about the best seat in the house. Kicked back with two of the most beautiful women in the world and an utter lack of drama. I never did much rope that night, but for me it was just want I needed. To be with my two favorite people, to ask them for advice about things weighing on my brain and not having to stress over it getting "strange" as they both offered thier different viewpoints. I'd love to boast and say that it is all thanks to my awesome kung-fu powers of poly, but the truth of the matter is that I'm really, fantastically lucky to be loved by such cool women.

Ok, back to work.

Things they don't tell you when you are poly #34

If there is a good film in theaters, expect to see it multiple times.

On a whim Matisse and I just caught the midnight opening of Sweeny Todd. Yep, we both agree we will be seeing it several more times in the next week as we take our other partners out to see it. Good thing it was a damn fun film.

Say Tambo, what ya doin tonight?

An open letter for my dear friend,


A sweet and wonderful friend of mine is going though some first time poly angst. I started to write a comment of encouragment on her journal and it sorta spilled into more. So I thought it best to share.

Dear ...,
So you are about to embark on your first poly foray. Kinda scary huh? It was so much easier when it was you and your husband sharing a girlfriend. But now you are about to embark on a solo relationship, your own secondary partner. One that you will have to care and maintain on your own. Scared? Exited at the prospects? Not sure what it all means?

Let me tell ya something sister, I been there and its gonna be ok. I remember the first date that I ever went on solo. Up to this point all our explorations into non-monogamy had been together, sharing our bed with several sweet ladies or forays into the swinger world. Always something we did together. Now things were to be different, I was going on a date alone. My greatest fear was, would this be the beginning of the end? Would my desire to have this relationship, however casual it may be, with out my wife’s involvement (beyond her meeting and approval of said girl of course) be the high watermark that we could look back on and see just where the marriage went south? Was I about to cash in the love of my high school sweetheart for this?

Short answer, no. In the 12 years since that first date I’ve had a lot of secondary lovers. Some good, some bad but in the end the constant has always been Tambo. She is the foundation, the rock that centers me and makes it possible for me to do what I do. Your husband is that same centering force for you. In the few short years I have known you both I can see how much love there is and how strong that relationship is. You guys get it. Take it from someone who has made every poly mistake in the book and fucked up more relationships that I care to remember.

To be poly and having multiple partners is not about replacing something that is broken in your relationship, but rather adding to something that works and creating something altogether better.

So first and foremost, I bet your head is zinging with the buzz of the new relationship and all the potential that lies with in. This new relationship energy is a wonderful thing; it keeps you up at night wondering about the smallest details about this new person. It can also be confusing, the constant buzz drowning out all other thoughts. You wonder, "OMG does this mean I’m not in love with my partner if all I can think about is this new person?" Nope, it is still there. Once the flash and smoke of the new thrill has subsided, there it will be like it always has been. Don’t confuse these feeling for love. On the same token, don’t just assume that your primary partner is going to wait patiently for the buzzing to stop. Make a point to give extra attention and reassurance to his during this time.

I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, but this confusion will pass. The shine wears off. I’ve had so many people who in the first 6 weeks I was so infatuated and thrilled by them that I thought for sure that I was “in love” for sure. After 6 months? Like any good drug, the high wears off and you find yourself thinking, is this really working for me?

Or it may not. It was a good 6 months before we said the “L” word to each other and have not looked back since. That was almost 4 years ago and we have not left our partners. While we are woven tightly into the fabric of each other’s lives and deeply in love, I still spend most of my days with Tambo. She is the one I’m planning on growing old with, still my foundation.

Alas, I am rambling on this rainy Seattle morning.

In closing, my dear, relax you are going to be ok. Enjoy the high of this new experience but don’t forget that the love you and your partner have for each other is reason why you are here. This boy may not be “the other one”, but enjoy it for what it is and remember, you are not replacing love just adding more love to mix.

I’m here for ya,
-Monk

Things they don’t tell you when you become poly, #9

This one is just for the men in the room.

Guys, you know that fantastic feeling of helplessness you get when the woman you love is being tormented by Mother Nature? You watch impotently as they battle migraines, mood swings and all manner of hormonally fueled discomfort. You try in vain to help make their fight easier, but in the end they still suffer. You do your best to give aid where you can, choose your words carefully for fear that what may have made her laugh yesterday will send her into tears today, and you offer anything, just shy of letting them slug you, to help. You know it is not their fault; they are not being malicious or doing it on purpose, call it the “tyranny of biology” or just chalk it up to the way life works. Sure it will go away eventually, but what caring partner wants to see a love suffer so for even a few minutes? Funny, you would think that after being married to the same woman for naerly 20 years I would know how to handle such things better, but I still hate it. I just hate that feeling of helplessness.

Guess what, having multiple committed relationships means that you get to multiply that sweet feeling of frustrated impotence.

Things they don’t tell you when you become poly #9

If one of your partners is a morning person and your other partner is a night owl, what do you do if you want to spend quality time with both of them? Become a caffeine person.

Family Matters

Posts might be a bit thin this week as I am ass deep in the mother in law. Ah, the mom, now there is something they don’t tell you when you become poly. Over the next two weeks I will be on duty with three moms. For every additional person who calls you “partner” (or lover, or daddy or “my protein powered space heater”) you now have one more mom that needs to be charmed and generally reassured that their child is in fact not conspiring with a serial killer.
Good thing moms tend to like me, call it my special ability I guess.

Thankfully Tambo’s mom, AKA The Mom, is pretty damned awesome. She seems to have taken to our whole non-traditional family structure pretty well. Then again she is the person who pretty much inspired this whole rope company to begin with. She even has gone as far as to bring presents for her “grandchildren”, Alex and Nerdy. Sadly I wish my own family as accepting. Poly is hard for parents to wrap their head around, wanting their children to be safe and well cared, this sort of thing does not really fall into their expectations. My mom, after nearly 4 years still refers to my other partner only as, “that other woman”. My father? Well we have not spoken a civil word in years due to who I choose to love.

So it means a lot to me when I can put on a good showing for a partner’s parent. To help put them at a bit more ease as they put a face to this idea of their child having a non-traditional relationship. That they have someone who, while they might not fit in the traditional definitions of “husband”, “lover” or even “boyfriend”, that they are loved and cherished.

In the meantime, take a read of my sexy friend RedSneaker's account of coming to visit my shop for the first time and getting tied up.

How to not (emotionally) slam into a (relationship) guardrail

There is a concept they teach you when riding a motorcycle called “Target Fixation”, understanding this can save your life. See, when you are swerving to avoid something or taking an overly sharp corner, your natural instinct is to focus on the thing you are trying to avoid. However by doing this you are not going to avoid said thing, instead you are going to slam right the fuck into it. Instead, they tell you to look not at the thing you want to avoid but rather look in the direction of where you want to be… and the bike will follow.

I like to apply this rule to my poly. For me it is far too easy to focus on the thing that I fear the most. For example, one of my constant fears is that by having so many things and people all vying for my time and attention that I am constantly short changing one or all of my partners at any given time. This fear can drive me to exhaustion as I work to second guess what they might be lacking from me or seek reassurance from them that they are feeling fully loved and cherished by me. In doing so I also drive them (and myself) insane. Thing is, if you focus too much time and attention on the thing you are trying most to avoid, you will make it come true. It is sorta like saying, “Whatever you do, don’t think about bananas”. What happens? All you can now think about are those damned bananas.

Meanwhile back at the motorcycle metaphor, how do you avoid becoming a grease stain on that jersey barrier then? Look through the turn to where you need to be in order to avoid the collision. For me that means, and I have to remind myself of this often, that rather than focus on the “oh fuck, I’m short changing my partners!” I ask myself, “am I fully present and enjoying the time I am blessed to have with them?” This means not dragging shop drama home and making it the focus of the date. Sure it is one thing to talk about the stresses of the day, it is another to let them ruin the few precious hours you have with someone you love. Don’t obsess over what things my over active sense of guilt might want to convince me that I am not doing for them and realistically assess what time and energy I can give and give it, even if it is less time than you would like, fully.

It also means that when they tell you, that even though you are currently a stress monkey and not the most entertaining of partners to have around, they still love you.

You trust them.

“isn’t there one damn song that can make me, breakdown and cry.”

Dear Monk,
I read your blog and love it, especially when you write about music. We are roughly the same age and I really identify with the songs you choose to write about. I’m curious however, you write about songs you to play to or work to. What song(s) make you want to cry?

Yours truly,
-R***

Music to bawl too? (As opposed to music to ball to, I guess? Yeah, bad joke I know but I had to take it.) Hmm, good question. I’ll confess that while I tend to gravitate towards more aggressive, driven music as opposed to say more introspective songs I do have quite a few tracks from artists like The Magnetic Fields and others. So I’m not all agro-fist pumping rock all the time. Just that is more where my tastes tend to lie.

That said, yeah there are a few songs that can pull a tear from my eye. One of them I just heard on the radio on the way home from an all too short date with my other partner, Matisse. “Starlight” from Muse. While a very up-tempo and amazingly composed song, the chorus gets me every time. That sorrow filled call of “I just wanted to hold, you in my arms…” is so filled with longing. It just seems to grab me, deep.

See, the one aspect of being poly and having multiple, committed relationships is that there is just never enough time. Never enough time to share with the ones you love. Add the small matter of my little rope company demanding a massive amount of my time and attention and I’m always left feeling this lingering guilt that I’m short changing them. Not giving those I love all the time and attention that they deserve. Sure they can tell me this is not the case, but when you love someone, I mean really love someone, there is just never enough hours in the day or enough ways to tell them that you care.

So when I hear the chorus, that sad longing in his voice is my longing, tugging at me. The longing to hold, protect, laugh with, make love to, or just share the same air as they do for just a wee bit longer and knowing that you just can’t … it just kills me everytime.

The only other song that consistently gets me is “Behind Blue Eyes” but The Who.

In other music related news, can anyone help me find 2 songs that I can’t seem to track down via the usual sources? The first one is “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce and the other is “Love Roller Coaster” as covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.