A Very Atypical ConFusion Report
The con reports at ConFusion were almost unanimously glowing – people reporting having glorious times. And I think it was, in the objective, a pretty damned fine convention.
I, unfortunately, had a really wobbly time at it.
Partially, that’s because I think ConFusion is starting to gel in a really nice way as a literary convention, slowly metamorphosizing into the ReaderCon of Michigan. The con was packed with more authors than ever before, coming from a wider range (I think in part due to last year’s attendance of Cat Rambo and the relocation to Michigan of up-and-coming author Saladin Ahmed, which spread the word), and the literary track was good enough that I kept getting annoyed that I had to go to my own panels. Why should I be on my boring ol’ panel when there were more interesting ones to see?
(No worries. I did what I could to make my panels lively and interesting and full of zombie whale jokes.)
That’s good – for ConFusion, for Michigan, for pretty much everyone involved. The problem was, for me, that I felt like I was doing a spectacularly bad job of balancing career and personal life.
See, the thing about ConFusion is that I’ve been going there for five years and have achieved what I refer to as Con Critical Mass – when you can’t walk across the hotel lobby without running into at least two people who you need to catch up with. These are often con-buddies, which is to say that you see them twice a year and follow ’em on Twitter the rest of the time, and you want to say hello because – cons being what they are – if you miss this ten-minute conversation now, you won’t see them for another six months.
So there’s a ton of beloved pals I want to hug and say “hi” to and see how they’re doing. That’s one end.
On the other end, we have a bunch of new writers I’ve never spoken to before. And not only is there the whole “You should network with writers!” pressure in my brain as an author – I’m not saying this is what I should do, but it’s what every fucking writer-blog tells me I’m at a con to do – but I find writers fascinating. I don’t get a whole lot of time in my real life to spend with people who get jazzed about debating the future of publishing, or who can give me gossip on what it’s really like to hang with The Legends of Science Fiction, or who’ll just understand what it’s like when you know how this story is going to go but you’ve taken five stabs at the opening scene and you just don’t know where to fucking start the ball rolling.
Problem is, since ConFusion is, as I mentioned, packed with newer writers, I don’t necessarily know them that well. And I’m stupidly fucking shy at cons; if I’m introduced or greeted, I’ll chat your goddamned ear off. But even if I have met you seven times over, if I see you sitting at a booth with two other strangers and you’re not waving me over, I’ll go, “No, she won’t remember me, and even if she does she won’t want to talk to me” and I’ll sit in the corner and meep. So that’s a form of con-stress.
(An example of how bad I am: There’s one Very Famous Writer who, even though I have met him several times and he’s perfectly nice to everyone and he’s even been my mentor at a fucking writing workshop, I cannot approach him. I’m convinced he doesn’t want to hear from me every time… right until he says hello. This is how stupidly freezing I am about such things.)
So the pattern of ConFusion was this:
* Spend ten minutes working myself up to actually go over and hang with the one person I know, who is surrounded by a group of two to three new writers who I’d like to meet.
* After too much sweat, insert myself sideways into said conversation.
* Just as I start to get involved in some interesting discussion of writing, an old con friend sees me across the room and runs over to hug me.
* Try to insert old con friend into current discussion of writing. Fail magnificently.
* Now must choose between blowing off old con friend or walking lamely away in mid-discussion that I’ve inserted myself into.
So the whole con, I felt this strange tension wherein I was either dismantling old friendships or walking away from create new ones, and I didn’t feel like I was ever making the correct choice or understanding how to manage this properly. Essentially, ConFusion was a perfect storm of social anxieties all colliding.
This doesn’t happen at, say, WorldCon, because everyone who’s there is a writer and if I happen to see you, well, we’re gonna be discussing what the fuck Twitter means for writers. And it didn’t happen at PenguiCon, because PenguiCon is not really a lit-con and as such I could just hang and doof out. But at ConFusion, I felt very caught between two worlds.
Worse, I kind of needed to hang with the writers to hang with the writers. As it turns out, many of the folks I’d hoped to get to know better with gathered on Saturday night in an impromptu hotel room party, which I didn’t know about because I was off snuggling my sweetie for two hours and thus missed the information-train.
So I dunno. Jim Hines was writing about his Post-Con Neuroses, and not only do I share his issues, this is one of my own. I felt bad at ConFusion because I wasn’t bonding with new people and I wasn’t spending the right amount of time with the old people, and as a result it led to a rather stressful time where I just had to spend all of Sunday trying to recover.
(Though I’m told by people who’ve seen me that I looked fine. One person said I even looked “relaxed.” I can fake it, man, when I have to.)
Even now, I’m a little worried about posting this in public, because as regular readers will know, I’m in a state of heavy depression and flux in my personal life, and trying to work out some new anti-depression meds (which I usually eschew, but hey, it’s bad this time) and therapy – all of which certainly didn’t help the con any.
But I dunno. I hope Penguicon will be better. And I don’t know whether anyone else deals with this, or how they do, but man, I know I do experience it and I need to work it out.
It's Business – It's Business Time!
You get to be the parent sometimes in almost every relationship. Which isn’t bad. You have to ask your partner to pick up something from the store, or remind them to take out the garbage, or hey, have you paid that bill you owe?
The problem comes when you have to be the parent all the time.
When you’re dating someone who’s sufficiently irresponsible, you start to slide into a situation that’s more nagger-in-chief than actual relationship. Your job is not a love that feels good, but rather a constant reminder of all this stupid shit your partner has to do – because, you know, if they wanted to do the goddamned dishes, they would have by now – and so the majority of your interactions with your partner become these boss-employee talks where there’s something they should be doing and you’re not letting up.
Sex suffers in a lot of these relationships. Because really, who wants to fuck someone who’s making them feel inept and stupid all the time? It’s hard to switch gears from “Hey, we’re in an apartment where you didn’t clean out the cat box like you said, now let’s make sweet love.”
Roleplaying aside, it’s not sexy being someone’s caretaker, and it’s usually not sexy being the caretaken.
This particular dynamic often gets worse in poly relationships, because it’s a pattern I’ve noted recently where there’s the “unfun” poly partner who pays the bills and takes care of the home and gets none of the hot sex, and the “fun” poly partner off-site who gets all of the giggles and hot sex and fun dates. Which is a relationship configuration that rarely works in the long-term.
The problem is that the core solution to this is usually pretty blunt: date someone more responsible. Yeah, I’m sure they’re a lot of fun, but if they can’t keep what you think are the basic building blocks of life together without you continually riding them, is that the kind of person you want to be with in the long run? So it sucks, but it may be time to move on, because you’ve got to date someone who shares your long-term goals – and like it or not, so many of those long-term goals are built on the tiny day-to-day expectations that you can’t ignore the little shit like this.
Usually, the solution is to just fucking go. Which sucks. But it’s better than continually wondering if your lover is going to remember to pick you up after work like they said.
The other solution may be to adjust your expectations. Yeah, if your partner’s continually getting fired and spends all of her space money on dope and videogames instead of kicking in with the rent, then you probably should apply the boot. But sometimes, it is you. Maybe your need to have zero dishes in the sink at all times is just a preference, not a command of how life should be, and that requirement that the checkbook be balanced to the penny at the end of every day is a bit onerous.
Sometimes, you chose the “fun” partner because they’re a change of pace from your normal life, and then what you do is stomp them down until they fit into your routine. Then you wonder why they’re boring. The solution in that case is to lighten up and recognize that maybe what you’re interpreting as irresponsibility is just a different set of priorities, and that your “requirements” are just personal quirks, and that maybe you can learn to meet in the middle of a dirty sink.
But it’s hard to be both parent and lover. The dynamics of forcing someone to do unpleasant, necessary things are at odds with the free love that leads to hot sex and happy attraction. So at some point, you’ve gotta find someone who shares roughly the same set of responsibilities that you have, or you have to change your expectations.
In Which I Announce Two Hugo Winners
…well, okay, I get to announce the winners of a Hugo-nominating membership, thanks to my own contest. But this is probably as close as I’ll come to announcing a Hugo, so I’m gonna grab it with both hands.
The winners (and now able to be nominators!) are:
Contact me at theferrett@theferrett.com with your physical address and preferred email so I can buy you your membership stat, before the 31st deadline passes!
Alas, only ten people suggested short stories to read, so this wasn’t as successful as I hoped. I think if I do it again next year, I’ll give out only one. But I do maintain that the $50 for a WorldCon membership is a great bargain, and if you’re at all interested, you should sign up stat.
…speaking of WorldCon, anyone in Chicago feel like hosting a weasel and his wife the the week before Labor Day? If so, lemme know.
A Thank-You Letter To The People On The Other Side Of My Lovers
One of the things hardly anybody talks about in poly is when your lover comes to you, crying, because their other partner just hurt them.
Shit gets surreal, because it’s time for you to play therapist. And you’re not in a mood to play therapist, because the woman you love is upset because someone who’s Not You has just done something spectacularly shitty. Your initial instinct is not “Well, let’s try to figure out what s/he really meant” but to drive over and punch him (or her) in the face for being such a meaniepants.
But no. Part of a good polyamorous relationship is supporting your partner in their other relationships. So you take a deep breath, and sit down, and talk it through with them.
And it sucks.
Because you know, relationship talks aren’t fun ever. But at least when they’re about what you’re doing, it’s got some kind of easy benefit to it: when this is done, we’ll be happier together. Whereas relationship talks with your lover about her lover’s foibles are exasperating, because the best reward at this point for success is that she keeps staying with a partner you’re not even sure she should be dating.
Fixing other relationships is also a bit of a trigger for most folks. Because yeah, you know she loves you. But there’s something about seeing her so upset about this other lover that makes you realize exactly how much this other person means to her… And there’s always that little tickle of, “If she cares that much, how can she have room left for me?”
The temptation is to go, “Just dump him.” But no. Instead, you wind up doing that one thing that’s harder than anything else – being fair. Trying to separate what s/he meant from what s/he actually said. Getting past this initial shock of pain and anger to try to figure out whether the sin is forgivable. Sifting through past actions to try to anticipate what comes next to see whether the future will be acceptable.
For a guy who, at this moment, you don’t like all that much.
And all the while you’re hoping you don’t have to lead a horse to water, because if this relationship is truly broken, and you say, “You need to dump them” and God forbid it works out, sometimes they remember that. You’ve seen other poly relationships where “You told me to dump him/her!” became a battleground later on as proof that you don’t really care.
No, you need to be supportive. Remind them that dumping is an option. Perhaps a strong one, if it’s that bad. And swallow back that worry that if worst comes to worse and you have to say, “Look, I can’t deal with all the uproar this guy in your life causes any more, you gotta choose between him or me,” that she’s willing to choose you.
But getting her to dump them is not your main goal. Your main goal is making her happy, and in that moment you envy all those poly couples who have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy where you never cross the streams, but that’s not you. She shares all the relevant bits of her life with you, and you want her happy (which she is, when this other relationship is functioning properly), so you bite back the snarkier comments and talk her through things like a goddamned grownup.
You fix ALL the things. And she goes off to talk with her other lover, and you lean back wondering whether you’ve done the right thing.
You have. It’s an act of charity and love, expending your time and energy to help patch up her other relationships. It’s an act of mature love that goes beyond the greediness of “This is mine” and into what I’d consider to be the true polyamory of not just tolerating your partner’s other lovers, but actively supporting and encouraging a fullness of life and love and happiness.
It ain’t easy, though. I know; I’ve done it for Gini, and I’m sorry to say I’ve done that to other people when my own poly-intentions have slipped a bit, and Gini’s had to play psychiatrist for me more than once.
So this is my thank-you letter for everyone who pitches in when the other partners cause stress, the quiet support behind the curtain. You’re why the good poly relationships work. And you don’t get acknowledged nearly enough.
Why The Muppets Are Propaganda
“You know how crazy the right wing is?” my friends said. “It’s gotten so bad, they think the Muppets are liberal propaganda!”
As evidence, they provided a video (from FOX news, of course) wherein a couple of talking heads discussed the sad, sad state of The Muppets targeting kids with crazy liberal messages. “It’s amazing how far the left will go to manipulate your kids and give them the anti-corporate message,” they said, noting Tex Richman’s characterization as an evil businessman. “I just wish the liberals could leave little kids alone.”
But here’s the thing: They’re absolutely right.
The Muppets are propaganda.
They’ve always been propaganda.
It’s just a propaganda you agree with.
The Muppets have always dropped pretty heavy-handed lessons about The Way You Should Live Life: Wealth or fame aren’t important – friends are. Follow your dreams, kids, no matter what anyone tells you. (Or, in the case of Fozzie and Gonzo, no matter what arguable talent you may have.) Freaks are not only okay, but really cool. Dignity is for the birds – no, seriously, just look at Sam The Eagle.
The Muppets are, to quote the old conservative paradigm, “subversive.” Because there’s this idea that “propaganda” can’t possibly be entertaining – yet the truth is that the best propaganda is actually wonderfully fun to watch, yet has this underlying core of ideas that slip into your head. And in between songs, the Muppets are constantly reinforcing their idea of The Way Life Should Be.
And I agree with them! Holy God, I wish we lived in a more Muppet-like world, one where Gonzo and Rowlf and Professor Bunsen Honeydew – disparate personalities all – could all live side-by-side. I wish our culture didn’t value wealth as an inherent sign of goodness.
Yet the Muppets are, amidst the explosions, constantly putting ideas into your head. There are precisely three people in The Muppets who are rich – Gonzo, Miss Piggy, and Tex Richman, and two of them are explicitly made miserable and sour by their businesses, while Miss Piggy is presented at least partially as working to compensate for a lost love. The Muppets’ poor business practices are, in fact, a point of pride in the movie (as Shortpacked! notably mocked here). There is no Muppet who has corporate aspirations, aside from arguably Scooter. They’re all artists and dreamers.
What’s that say about the average businessman? It’s a quiet message, but it’s there: This suit is what you do not want to be.
None of that is bad. But it does get bad when you get huffy and go, “Well, that’s not a message! That’s just the way things should be!” Which is exactly the same goddamned thing fundamentalist Christian parents say when they flood their kids with Veggie Tales and Davey and Goliath. They’re not trying to give their kids a message, they’re just showing them how the world works. Right?
The error here is thinking that your most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational way of thinking is “just entertainment” because you agree with the messages it provides. The Muppets is a liberal show, made by liberal people, and it’s got some damn good liberal messages… And yes, it’s aimed at kids, who are more likely to have some of those messages absorbed into their system.
Does that make the Muppets bad? Hell no. Do I think Jim Henson sat down in his Evil Subversion Lab and said, “Let us make a series that will sway kids towards COMMUNISM!” and then cackled evilly? Hell no. I think Jim was a guy who had a lot of personal feelings about life that emerged, organically, in his art – which is the way it often works.
But don’t deny that there’s a barb inside this furry fabric, one that hooks kids towards a world where you’re encouraged to look beyond people’s exteriors and to become a little more tolerant and a little less concerned with money. That’s a wonderful message, as far as I’m concerned. But it’s still something that is being taught, fairly overtly, and you ignore that truth at your peril.
Because you know what? Liberal values are important to teach. And to think of the liberal message as something inherent in the world is to forget that we are not necessarily born loving and kind and sharing – check any of the fights on the playground – and that really, this sort of teaching lessons is a part of responsible parenting.
I’m not saying we should brainwash our kids, but we should monitor what kinds of lessons we do teach them, and analyze what’s being presented in the media. Because these sorts of behaviors are taught, quietly, through parents and teachers and the shows we allow them to watch, and it’s correct to sift through those voices for what they’re actually saying. For many parents, what the Muppets want to teach is abhorrent – and while I disagree with them, to deny the Muppets carry a message is incorrect.
It sounds strange, but as a liberal, the Muppets are a voice for what we believe in. To dismiss that is to forget that these lessons need to be taught. And they do. Which is why we need Kermit telling us what’s right in this damn world.
Am I Good In Bed?
So over on FetLife, the Facebook for Kinksters, there’s a thread asking you to rate how good you are in the sack:
A) I will rock your world. I’m so good you’ll be pissed off at all of your past lovers for all the time wasted that you could have been with me.
B) “The best you’ve ever had” doesn’t begin to describe me.
C) I’m so good you will want to put a ring on it.
D) I get no complaints
E) You wouldn’t kick me out of bed for eating crackers and leaving crumbs
F) Mercy fuck, and teach me some skills please.
G) Don’t bother with a mercy fuck. I’m beyond hope.
Now, I’d like to rank myself on this list, but the problem is that I don’t really think there’s a generic “good in bed.” There are certain baseline skills you can use to ensure that you’re not awful, skills which can be honed by practice, but everyone’s chemistry is so different it’s hardly worth comparing.
I mean, look, my wife and partners think I’m great in bed – but why wouldn’t they? They’re dating me for the long term, which means they must have clicked with me sexually enough to go, “Well, I should get some more of that.” And presumably, as I learn what they like, I get better with time.
Meanwhile, I’ve gone on dates with some women who it just didn’t work out with sexually… and as a partial result of that non-connection, they’re not currently with me. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people, but why date someone who’s bad in bed for them – like me – when we could just be friends?
Plus, there’s the curve. It’s hard to look someone in the eye after the intimacy of sex and go, “Whoo, that was spectacularly mediocre.” I think I’ve gotten a sum total of one “You’re terrible” comment post-coitus in my life, even when I was achingly aware of how terrible this was for them. Usually, you go for subtler things, like correcting them in mid-sex, or steering them towards different body parts, or even just declining a second go-around, rather than going, “Hey, can I post that sex on FailBlog?”
So you know, I’m awash in a sea of positive feedback, but it doesn’t mean that much to me because it’s self-selecting. And I think some folks take that feedback to mean “Yeah, I am SPECTACULAR in bed!” instead of looking at the circumstances surrounding that feedback and compensating.
I know I’m good with certain people. Does that mean I’ll be good with you? Who the hell knows? There’s that mysterious element of sexual chemistry, and sometimes that just doesn’t pan out. Like I said, some careful attention to what your partner likes can smooth over a lot of gaps, but sometimes people are just hard to read. Sometimes it’s just fumble after fumble no matter how you try.
You know when I know you’ll be good in bed with me? When we kiss. That kiss will tell me everything I need to know about how good we’ll be, because the kiss itself carries so much – how well we read each other, our sympathetic styles, the scent and taste of you. One kiss, and I can tell you how good it’s going to be.. for me.
When do you know whether I’ll be good for you? Hell if I know. Maybe you know, but I sure as heck don’t. And I don’t think I can tell you from any generic chart.