So he walked slow.

So I walked slow.

To this day, Gini tells me I amble glacially – because I’m used to quietly keeping Tommy’s pace, not wanting to upset him.  Oh, I could have jogged on ahead; not that Tommy would have been devastated, as I was basically his son and he would have forgiven me the world.

But he had enough reminders that he was broken and frail.  He didn’t need another one from me.  So I crept at his pace, which only got slower as the years went by, and we passed the time as two humans.

This is what you do when you have a friend who’s disabled.

Let’s be blatantly honest and say that having disabled friends is often an inconvenience verging on annoyance.  They can’t get up stairs.  They cancel at the last minute because of unpredictable sicknesses.  There’s more planning to be find the right restaurant because of their diet.

If you think it’s an inconvenience to you, imagine how it feels to them.

Every day, the world wakes up and punches your pals in the fucking face, telling them “Hey, you know all those things you want to do?  You can’t.”

You can choose to be one of those blows.  Or you can be understanding and loving and help them to live a better life.

It’s that fucking simple.

They live in a smaller world because of something they don’t have control over.  I think a good friend will take that into account, and tread that fine line between “Yes, it’s an inconvenience and you may not always be able to come along” with a lot of love and understanding and bold attempts to make room for your friend because yes, they have a condition and it deserves to be accommodated whenever possible.

Because when you are that sick, you notice the way people cancel plans with you.  The way they quietly stop inviting you to parties.  The way you don’t defend them when other, healthier people, complain that they shouldn’t have to deal with your issues.

They’re sick, not stupid, and they feel their excision from your life as keenly as a cut.  One more cut in a life filled with them.

I’m not saying I was saccharine-sweet to Tommy.  I acknowledged the difficulty of his disabledness from time to time, because we were loving humans and that means being honest.  But I never made a big deal about the way we had to get to concerts half an hour early so he could get to his seat, or how we had to stay an hour late because the crowds might bump him too hard.

Instead, I used that extra time to talk to him, companionably walking at his cane-pace, as friends.  He must have noticed that his hyperactive teenaged nephew was walking slow.

But for a time, he had the ability to live his life as though nothing was wrong with him. And that was the greatest gift I could give him.

In any case, if you happen to be in Washington DC this weekend and would like to see a weasel, there are several places at which you can catch me:

I’ll be at the Mass Autograph Signing from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., signing copies of my latest book.  What’s that, Ferrett? you ask.  You don’t have a book yet, you exclaim.  Oh, but I do, thanks to fellow nominee Nancy Fulda, who has created the Awards Weekend Collector’s Edition, which features works by eleven authors who will be at the Nebula weekend.  I’ll have it, I can sign it, and if you’re quite lucky you can get a full run and have all eleven authors put their name on it.

(My story in there is “As Below, So Above,” my generational tale told from the perspective of the monsters in a mad scientist’s moat.  Read it in advance, and I’ll even draw a squid for you.)

(And while you’re at it, read Nancy’s Nebula- and Hugo-nominated story “Movement,” a tale of future autism that is a fascinating exercise in tone.  I nominated it, and am glad to see my tastes vindicated.)

(And while you’re extra at-it, note that I am currently in search of an agent for my book, so if you’re interested… call me!)

At 1:00 on Saturday, I’ll be on the “Watch That Step!” panel with Tom Crosshill, Nancy Fulda, Ellen Kushner, and Rachel Swirsky, where I’ll be discussing pacing in stories.  This oughtta be interesting, because my pacing is usually pretty reflexive – you kind of develop a sense of fast and slow after writing blog entries for, I dunno, a decade.  So discussions will be had.

And if you feel like hanging out and you’re a press type, I’ll be available for interviews at 3:00 on Friday.  I suspect strongly I’ll be hanging out in an empty room twiddling my thumbs, but should a reporter show up I will perk up nicely and answer all available questions on squids and space stations that I can.

Also, if we’ve met before, feel free to text me – or email me at theferrett@theferrett.com to get my phone number so we can coordinate drinks.  We shall see what happens.

The weird thing about Game of Thrones is how some people stand out because of the actors.  Honestly, I never paid attention to Littlefinger in the book – which is a trick, because we see all of his plots and discussions, know who he talks to, and yet somehow I keep forgetting that he’s pulling most of the strings in Westeros.

Yet in the series, Baelish is such a screen force that they give him extra time to masturbate on-camera.  Thus are the delights of HBO.

That said, Jon Snow was one of the big guns in the book series, yet on screen he comes off as petulant and ignorant.  Part of that’s the age shift, where Jon Snow’s four years older and as such he’s having an on-schedule adolescent rebellion during his sophomore year in college.  But part of it is that the actor who plays him has a confused face and this unfortunate pube mustache, and so much of the inner dialogue that highlight’s Jon Snow’s maturity is lost.

Baelish: Win.  Jon Snow: Loss.

Likewise, Tywin Lannister is a strangely likeable figure in the series, not quite fatherly but rewarding intelligence and cunning… Which few do.  I could just watch “The Tywin and Arya show” all week, because I love the subtle interplay between the two of them.  And so what if Tywin should have recognized Arya by now?  Who’s to say he hasn’t, and is just playing it far better than his idiot grandson?

Whereas I barely remembered Theon Greyjoy from the book aside from him as a plot device, but the actor who’s portrayed him has made him wonderfully craven and snivelling.  Which is a wonderful talent, because you’d think Joffrey would have sewn up that particular avenue, but there’s something about Theon’s insecurity that just trumps Joffrey’s boiling arrogance.

Daenarys, however, is dropping for me.  She used to be strong, and now she’s just sort of whiny.  “Give me what I want, or I’ll…. pout!  And be poutier.  Say, did I mention I’m the Mother of Dragons?”  She had a nice moment of dry realization with whats-his-butt, but then was back to “Give me because I said!”

(This is a rare case of the books and the TV series intersecting, because I got fed up with her antics around [book X] and decided, dragons or no, I’d be happy if she got axed.)

It’s kind of fascinating.  I mean, Tyrion’s always been the star, but I suspect the fan base is different among the books-only fans and the series-only fans just because of the magnetic pull of the actors.  Some do better in translation, others do worse.

Meanwhile, I’m rooting for Stannis.  He’s a dry, humorless fuck, but he’s at least vaguely competent.  He might not fuck up the kingdom too badly if he wins.

The book was about an antiques dealer, sitting at his desk, when a customer came in with some effects from a dead celebrity.  The antiques dealer had not heard of said celebrity, and as such told the woman that these items weren’t worth much.  As it turns out, the dealer “doesn’t get out much,” and the celebrity was in fact very big news in certain circles, and was later called upon the carpet by his boss.

Note what did not happen in this crazy future-world: not one fucking Google search.

Back when I was editing for StarCityGames, I’d get articles by people I’d never heard of.  And even as scattershot as SCG’s editorial focus was back then, I Yahoo-searched every name to make sure they hadn’t won a Pro Tour or something.  Sometimes they had, and that saved me much embarrassment.

So what we have is someone presented as a competent employee, who doesn’t think to type a name into a goddamned computer.  Which is a social failure on the part of the author, who also references a lot of old-school printouts and books hanging around in a future rife with AIs that can talk and evolve.  Won’t e-books and bookmarks have consumed those wholesale by then?

I don’t think that it’s that she’s bad at writing (the book’s quite fun otherwise!), but that she’s so busy envisioning a future where black holes and time travel matter that she’s accidentally skimming over the very changes to society that technology has wrought right now.

As a science fiction author, that vexes me.  I think it’s our job to look at how technology changes people, and part of that has to be looking at the society that we’re becoming.  Facebook is causing all sorts of havoc in the college field, because you have some sleazy hookup with someone, and wham!  Tomorrow, an embarrassing friends’ request.  That person’s now connected with you, a part of your life in a way you didn’t necessarily want but would now be a dick to refuse.

Things teenagers say are now amplified in weird ways.  Drama spirals out of control so much quicker when it’s all in the public arena, dogpiles of crazy waiting to happen.  Dumb photographs you took when you were fifteen now lurks in your Facebook archives, waiting to be revealed by employers at the worst possible moments.  And always, always there’s the possibility of your idiocy going viral, where in the blink of an eye your fun weekend project becomes the next Rebecca Black.

As people who are looking at the future, we need to examine that, and extrapolate, and figure out where all of this enmeshing of society goes.  Maybe that’s a part of my history, because at the age of 25 I started writing crazy sex stories that opened up my personal life, and twenty years later that’s such a part of my identity I can’t imagine what it would be like to not be a blogger.  But the choices I made when I was young, dumb, and full of cum are still influencing my life years later in massive ways I could not have anticipated…

…and that’s the future.  This having every word on the record.  This me, changing the details of the book so I’m not calling out another author in public, because I don’t want to start a flame war with someone whose book I think is otherwise quite good.

This is the new society we live in, where all information is just a touch away, and I think as authors we need to examine that warp and weft of our fabric more closely.  To figure out how our culture will either adjust to this craziness, or to figure out how we’ll start to bend the rules so that it becomes healthier for everyone.

Either’s okay.  My first pro-published story, Camera Obscured, is all about a boy trapped in the web of social media.  Sauerkraut Station is about a lonely girl who’s too far from the social networks, but note that there’s at least a nod to the expense of sending emails.  I’m not saying they’re works of genius, but they’re at least making concessions to the future that’s spinning off of today’s headlines.

I think the singularity is coming, but it’s not what you think.  I think it’s going to be a hideous snarl of concentration-shattering advertising and reptile-brain attention grabs and selfishness ego-shouting, and when it comes it’s going to shred us apart because the corporations will have learned how to pander to our worst desires out to three significant digits.

That’s my vision.  Yours will be different.  But please.  Apply a little thought to what’s going on now, and don’t just have the next generation of people be just like us.  They will have a lot of similarities.  But they’re growing up in science fiction now, so honor that by viewing it through a lens that is flexing and distorting as you read these words.

It had been sent by Voiceofanangel, a local friend of mine who’d seen me struggling with depression.  And it meant a lot.  Because she’s not poor, but she’s not rich, either; the money it took to send those hot chocolate packets cost her a coffee at Starbucks, I’m sure.  It was a choice to do so, one where she gave up something to ship that package.  And she opted to make me happy out of nowhere.

I save those packets like power-ups.  Whenever I’m feeling particularly down, I put the milk in the microwave, and I open one of them like Charlie Bucket slowly peeling the foil off his Wonka bar, and I savor it.  That little blast of friendship.  A kindness from someone who did not have to.  And when I drink that hot chocolate, it is savored and it is sweet.

I can only hope that I’m paying that kindness back.  I try to send little blasts of awesome, reminders that my friends are loved, texts out of nowhere and e-cards encouraging them on hard days.  Because that, to me, is what knits the universe together – not the grand sweeps of romantic love, but the little acts of friendship that tell people, “You matter.”

You matter.  Thanks for reading me today.

So my relationships were long, torturous things.  If I thought there was the slightest chance we could still work it out, I’d spend hours, days, month hashing out what that inflection had meant.  I never broke up before I had sucked the absolute last bit of enjoyment from a relationship; by the time we were done, we were wrung as sponges.

My recent breakups, however, worry me.  They’ve been short, sweet… even curt.  “I don’t think this is going to make me happy; I can’t do this.”  And it doesn’t mean that the other person is evil, but it does mean that the effort I’d have to put into this relationship to make it functional is beyond what I’m capable of giving now.

So when I break up?  I feel cold.  Mercenary.  As though I hadn’t given it a real effort.

That worries me.  But I’m married now, and I owe it to Gini to have largely healthy secondary relationships.  If I’m upset all weekend because someone said something that got me all butthurt, then that ruins Gini’s time as well.  That’s not fair to her, spending her time rehabilitating ol’ mopey here.  So there’s a certain callous calculation that runs through my mind now: if my lover can’t make me happy X% of the time, time to bail.  If you keep making me sad, I can’t spend my time trying to narrow down whether it’s my oversensitivity or your undersensitivity… if this doesn’t stop, you gotta go.

Which sucks.  There’s a part of me that wants to go, “Oh, let’s spend the next several months revamping our communication so I can be stronger and wiser.” After all, that approach did work with Gini, who by all rights should be my ex-wife now. Sometimes, that focused love and effort pans out.

So what am I now?  An uglier man?  Less caring?  That concerns me.  It’s a form of strength, I guess, but it also feels like a big weakness.  I feel like someone who threw a human being aside for convenience – give me what I need, irrational as that may be, or I’m not staying.  And it feels like I’m missing out on growth opportunities to find my own weaknesses.

It’s also why I don’t publicize my relationships.  Gini’s the only one who gets the rhapsodic “I’m in love” entries on Ye Olde Blog… Because if I add someone to my blog’s cast of characters, and make my readers invested in them, then if it doesn’t work out I have to find a good way to drag them off stage.

I’ve seen that happen to others in other blogs.  It’s ugly.  People take sides, usually with the blogger, making snarky-but-helpful comments about how you’re better off without them, prying to know what exactly caused the breakup, encouraging stung responses from the newly ex-ified as her motivations are dragged out in front of everyone.  And because of that, I usually will make mentions for someone’s cleverness (and anyone I date is clever), but not go all happy-dance to announce that I’m with someone.  Hell, I’m willing to bet you didn’t know about the previous breakups (which were, largely and thankfully, friendly ones).

That’s caused issues.  “Why am I not in your electronic life?” they ask, hinting that I should post about my love for them.  Well, I don’t put you in my e-life because you might not be in the real one some day.  Awkward, ugly… And true.

I dunno.  I’m prone to making dumb-ass, cryptic comments about something that’s annoying me in relationships, which I probably shouldn’t (even if I never make a cryptic comment that’s related to a trouble with only one person).  But once that relationship’s done?  It’s over.  I’ve had my say.  From then on, I’ll elucidate only when asked.

Which is worrisome now, because my exes may have a different take.  Used to be, I’d give it such a running go that you could say that I was needy, I was angry, I was childish, but you couldn’t say I didn’t care.  Now?  I don’t even have that.

(And yes, I’m still with my “core” relationships of A and B.  Thankfully.  Those partings would require an official announcement, as Gini and I have been dating both of them for almost four happy years at this point.)

Which is to say that we mostly take baths in La Casa McJuddMetz, and the shampoo is on the upper shelf at shower height.  So whenever I want to wash my hair, I have to reach way up to grab it, risking tilting it onto my face.

The conditioner, however, is on the left-hand side at bath level, easily accessible.

This is a little annoyance, but it’s also constant.  Every morning, whoops, reaching up for the shampoo again.  And yet it’s never quite bad enough to bellow, “GINI!  GET IN HERE!  YOU’RE FUCKING UP MY BATH MOJO!”  Nor is it so annoying that I would remember to pull Gini aside an hour later, calling a bathroom meeting to go, “Look.  We need to talk about the shampoo incidents I’ve been having.” But apparently Gini likes it there.

So every morning: damn.  Damn.  Damn.  Damn.  It’s like being a bathtub amnesiac, vexed by the same poor product placement every morning.  It’s like my memory only works when my hair is wet.

So last night, Gini and I were confessing silly annoyances, and she said, “Oh, WAIT!”  Then she ran into the bathroom.

“Can we move the damn shampoo?” she asked.  “Where I don’t have to reach up for it every fucking morning?”

“Seriously?” I asked, clasping her hands in joy.  “I thought you liked it up there!”

“No!” she said, her face suffused with happiness.  “This shit is terrible!  Let’s move the shampoo!”

And together, we switched shampoo and conditioner, never feeling closer in our twelve years of marriage, realizing that yes, we’ve made the right choice and it must have been one of those bastard houseguests who fucked up our bathroom mojo.

Then we cuddled.  And this morning, my bath was awesome.

The first essay is at a new magazine called Kink-e-Zine, a San Francisco-based online publication devoted towards sane and safe kinky sexual practices.  I’ve agreed to write a monthly humor column for them, and my first one is a letter called “Dear Dude Who Sends My Female Friends Pictures Of His Penis.”  It’s an analysis of why men are so trigger-happy to send women cock shots, and it starts like this:

Some women might be interested if your penis was, like, the Monolith from 2001, something so huge that people squinted and said, “Is that a sequoia?” But no. You introduce yourself with an excruciatingly average cock shot.

Now, I think I know why you do this, but let me explain my logic.

See, to you, women’s brains are basically this annoying lock to be cracked in order to get at the juicy sexiness beneath. You really could care less what they think; what you want are tits and a hot pussy, and if you have to mutter a few magical incantations like “I see” and “That’s interesting” to get it, well, you’ll tolerate some conversation.

But largely, to you, women are a buffet….

I go on from there, analyzing motivations.  But this happens a lot on FetLife, and I’ve heard horror stories from women on OKCupid. Really, dudes?  Stop making me look bad.

My other writing is on FetLife (theFacebookforKinksters), discussing scenes from Cleveland’s very own Kinko de Mayo festival.  They had all sorts of classes on various topics including erotic wrestling, needleplay, flogging to catharsis, and one pretty brutal crucifixion demo (which, unfortunately, I missed).  I wrote up my experiences of the weekend, detailing my first fire play with strangers, how I sprained my finger erotic wrestling, and my new toy.

The writeup is here, and I think it’s a pretty fun read.  Check it out if you’re inclined.

The conversation, as presented, was such:

“So you play a lot at the dungeon,” I asked.  “You’re clearly very sensual and body-oriented.  Can I ask why are you sexually monogamous?”

“Couple of reasons, some bad,” she replied.  “The bad one is that I’ve got it very good with my partner and don’t want to screw things up.”

“Stop right there,” I said.  “That’s a good reason.  An awesome reason.  Don’t you dare think that’s a bad reason for being monogamous.”

Now, that’s not actually the conversation I had.  The conversation I had was actually over the course of about twenty minutes of asking how she met her partner, and hearing the origin story (I love romantic meet-cutes), and seeing the profoundly silly grin she got when she talked about her partner.  Then we discussed the difficulties of living in separate cities when you’re in love (which I did with Gini, so I sympathized), and some of the issues involved in being in hot, sensual BDSM play and not crossing boundaries.

Then I said, “Look, I know the question itself carries some weight, so please don’t think I’m judging you in any way – but given that you play so damn sensually, do you mind me asking why you’ve chosen to be sexually monogamous?”

Very different take?  Yes.  But when I write essays, I change conversations all the time.  In this case, I knew my ultimate point was to talk about how choosing monogamy because you just don’t want to risk losing your current love is a valid choice.  And an accurately transcribed conversation would pull that punch of revelation, which I planned to have about halfway through.

Also, I scrub off details before I post.  Discussing more about this person’s relationship and what I knew about it would risk putting someone on a stage they never asked for, and I am always cautious with that.  My conversations as presented in this blog are often heavily changed; after posting, I asked Gini whether she knew who I had spoken to, and when she guessed wrong twice, I knew I’d obfuscated correctly.  In truth, I can actually neither confirm nor deny that the person who I spoke to was heterosexual or a woman or a conversation I even had on Friday.  But providing more context means providing more identifiable marks.

So I boiled down a long and complex and intensely personal conversation to three lines that summarized the heart of it.  I often do this.  This is why I tell people that what’s in my journal is me, but my blog is not who I actually am. It’s an edited version that sometimes makes me sound better than I am, or sometimes makes me sound worse – all depending on what approach I think will sell the central point of my essays better.

The gist is there, always.  The details?  Not so much.