2004-10-5 - 1:27 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Presque Rien", Francis Cabrel

Monday, October 4

For those of you who wanted to see Poindexter's new dirt bike, here she is. Ain't she pretty?

This was supposed to be a comment in a couple of journals, but it got too long-winded to be a comment anymore. It's in reaction to the idea that many or most monogamous relationships are generally insecure and/or controlling, with an unhealthy jealousy.

I'm coming at the idea of monogamy from a different angle, I think, because there is no real jealousy involved here. (Actually I rather enjoy feeling a little jealous, but that's another story.) For me personally, monogamy is not about control or jealousy. It's a mutual choice to focus primarily on each other as far as intimacy goes, because the relationship and my life is more rewarding that way. The stress and extra work of dealing with two (or more) relationships and not having enough of me (and my time) to go around outweighs, for me, any benefits I might get. My life is most rewarding when I spend a great deal of time with my husband.

Jeez, I can't get enough of Poindexter as it is -- imagine if I had two of them! He is just vastly entertaining to me. During one of our discussions about polyamory in general, I told him if he falls in love with another girl she has to move in with us and he sleeps between us so we can maximize our time with him. But the thought of this pains me, because as much as I would enjoy seeing his happiness with another person, I would miss him terribly, and the fact is that another intimate relationship is going to detract from ours in some ways (even while it might enhance it in others). It's all about tradeoffs, for me.

Part of having a relationship, for me, involves the ability to share all of myself and be given all of his self in return. That is what makes me happiest. It doesn't lend itself well to poly, I don't think. Poly might work better for people who like to compartmentalize their selves, and share some parts with others and keep some to themselves. I am not happy compartmentalizing, and all I ever wanted, my whole life, was somebody I didn't have to only share part of myself with. But I've known many people who don't WANT that at all.

And monogamy is working well for me, because while I have crushes occasionally, I don't have any real desire to be intimate with anyone else, either physically or emotionally. (When I wasn't having my intimacy needs met with my previous boyfriend, OTOH, I was wanting physical intimacy elsewhere and getting emotional intimacy from my best friend at the time.)

I believe that some people have intimacy needs that cannot be met with one person -- I'm not arguing that at all. Bisexuality is the most obvious case. But for people who can have their most important needs met with one person, and who manage to find that person, monogamy is just not controlling or insecure, it's simply the choice that makes the most sense and yields the greatest happiness.

Tuesday, October 5

The other day, I was looking for shoe shops near 1300 Market Street (my beloved Wanamaker building) by mapping that address in Yahoo Maps and using their Yellow Pages feature.

I was beside myself with (Evelynne-type) excitement when I saw, on the map, a one-block street named ... Drury Lane. Really. DO YOU KNOW?!?!?! So I brought my camera with me, only to be really quite disappointed to discover that whoever made the map was funnin' with me, because it wasn't Drury Lane, it was just plain old

There's a really nifty-looking ale house on that block:

But no Muffin Man. :(

Y'know, it would be a fuck of a lot easier to post pictures for y'all if I could stand to look at pictures of myself, or failing that, if I could stand to stand still long enough to get a picture I could tolerate. Instead, you just have to listen to me whine. I am thinking perhaps I need to figure out a specific pose that always works, and then every picture of me that you see from now on will be me in that pose. If you want different angles, you have to come visit.

Sweater is from Macy's. Skirt from Express. Brooch is my mother's. Watch I've had a while, from Strawbridge's. Shoes ... ah, the shoes!

I saw a picture in a magazine of a chick wearing a tweed skirt and these adorable Marc Jacobs shoes:

I don't buy $450-dollar shoes, so I ripped it out of the magazine to put on my wall.

As you know, my trip to the Freehold Nordstrom did not go well -- poor selection (!) plus everything hurt my feet -- so I went out shopping last weekend to see if I could just find some cute fun pumps with a round toe. Everything either had too high a heel or didn't fit. So I had just about given up when I went to Strawbridge's and saw a black-and-gray version of that shoe in size 5.5 with a 3" heel. I looked on the bottom at "available colors" and one of them was "camel". I freaked. Did they have the shoe in my size in camel at that store? Of course not. But the 5.5 in black fit me, and so did the size six, so I went home and looked up all the Strawbridge's stores within a half-hour and had Poindexter, bless his heart, call them for me. He called six stores before he finally found one, half an hour away, that had the shoe in 5.5. I went up there, tried them on, and went home with a big grin on my face. Thirty bucks ($30). I LOVE THEM. I wear them around the house a lot.

This is me attempting badly (without actually having the picture to look at) to reproduce the pose of the model wearing the Marc Jacobs shoes. That's my new satchel from Burlington ($14.98). I know it is not the same shade of brown as the outfit, and indeed it is babyshit brown and probably too big to be a purse and too small to be a "tote", but I don't care. I like it. I decided that it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks as long as I am happy with it, so if it's horrible, don't tell me so I can continue to delude myself.

I also wear this outfit with my brown boots. I didn't get any decent pictures with the boots, but here's one anyway:

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