Walking Around and Around It

It is rainy here today. Tonight I am going over to Green’s house, just me and him. And Borderline is coming to our house, just her and Wifebian. Borderline needs a new name. She has stepped up in very promising ways — gratitude, apologies, honesty. I officially rescind her pejorative blog name. In the meantime, Wifebian and I havent been able to figure out why we call Green “him”, in some ways it’s a standard convention for us when talking about a butch femme couple just because it decreases the confusion about which she we are talking about. But, it turns out that Green wants to transition, in that quiet, frustrated, scared way that 25 year olds sometimes want to transition, so calling him “him” fits and feels good. On the other hand, he says I bring out the girl in him. I wonder if he means boy and just doesnt know it yet.

Some time in my early twenties, I started a very specific diary. I only wrote in it in when I was getting into a new relationship — sexual and/or romantic — with a masculine woman. I would only write once, one entry per girl. And I would labor over describing that person’s physical embodiment, what they brought out in me, what the sex was like, and what the future might hold. I was, and continue to be, so desperate, or desirous, of putting my finger on this amazing thing that happens between our kinds. It’s time for a new entry in that little green book.

The past two weeks of my life have been dominated by the discussions and small acts that must usher in the opening of my marriage. This dinner, that agreement, this date, that fantasy. Lists, texts, cards. As soon as I have the time and the internet connection to sit down and write to you, something changes, some new dynamic is revealed, some boundary– visible and invisible — crossed, pleasure enjoyed. Without the time and space to reflect on my own, without support, from friends or family, or a community, I’m definitely starting to feel weary. Like it’s just my head and Wifebian’s head, my libido and her libido, doing all the work, shouldering the burden of manifesting another tender pocket of pleasure in a world stitched through with attachment, jealousy, possession and fear. But this is exactly how I want to live my life. These are the fights I want to fight about the most. This is my favorite kind of pleasure. Fostering relationships, especially once so rife with sex and emotion, is a creative act for me, like writing. I wish I could put our relationships with this couple and the people in it on a pedestal in a gallery and walk around and around it, admiring.

So Green is a boy and Borderline needs a new name. I am exhausted but fulfilled. How is Wifebian? How are we?

Wifebian is listing from side to side, one moment foot loose and fancy free with the boundaries, the next moment clingy and angry that I am five minutes late. One moment all generous and powerful, the next needful, controlling. We have not had sex, together or separately, with Borderline and Green. Maybe next month. But, today I helped her pick out an Adrienne Rich poem for Borderline. And Wifebian and I have decided which kind of sex we will have when we get home from our dates. We are proud of ourselves.

Borderline has a daydream in which we all rent a cabin and go skiing. None of us ski, but we all talk about the cabin, mostly to tease Borderline. But I like her cabin. It’s some utopian place where we all trust one another unconditionally and enjoy one another’s company freely. Sweetly, that’s all the cabin means, for now.

From now on, posts about this stuff will be password protected. Send an email to mrsbasement@yahoo.com for the password; it’s going to be the same as before.

Let’s Get It Started!

So, I’ve been a little consumed by this whole trying to get pregnant thing and have been writing about it lots. I still frequent my social work blogs, my favorites being Mixed Feelings and Trench Warfare. And I always feel a tad sad to see myself featured on their Social Work blog rolls, only to be moaning and groaning about sperm.

I’ve been mum on the social work front, too, because I’m feeling real down and out about my career and my clients right now. We have a low caseload at work, which means I’m working, like, 20 hours a week and surfing the net for another 20. Also, I’m kind of burned out on my clients, who are all dumb and mean (read: learning disabled and multiple trauma survivors) and I am lacking all supervision from my supervisor and my team.

Until today. We got a new referral. A self-reported out, proud and partnered dyke. I am an open book, she says! I have to be 100% honest with you, you’re the therapist, when you come into my house, we open our home to you, she says, you have access to everything! Also, talks a mile a minute and is not happy with her current service provider, who told her that she should not be wearing a sports bra around her son.

My clinical sense is that she is in an interracial relationship. Or maybe she is biracial. That she has bipolar disorder and is in recovery, from . . . I dunno. Heroin. And she has some some Axis II traits and touches. How ’bout . . . narcissistic. And we are gonna have boundary problems galore, at least I hope so. I love boundary problems. (Seriously.) Also, I’m just gonna call it. Sight unseen, I think mom is the butch. Light-skinned butch. And is that a New York accent I detect? Oh, yesssss!

(I luxuriate in making assumptions about people. Especially when they are based on the complex web of cues a keen observer with an eye for mental illness and regional-racial gender politics can detect during a 5 minute phone call.)

And when she meets our team she is just gonna be so sure that she made the right decision. That’s my quote. How do like that Reas? A predictive quote from the field. My team currently consists of me — a Northern white femme, my coworker — a black Southern guy, who is gay from 50 paces, and my other coworker, a straight Southern white lady. We are all early thirties and pretty awesome.

Are you ready for some social work fun?!?!

I am!

Seriously. I am really ready to like a client and have some fucking fun.

(In fact the absence of a satisfying working alliance in my professional life paired with the total lack of a social life in my social life is sure to ensure that I am 50% of whatever problems arise over the next year with this family.)

Facebook Message from a Dear Friend

“WOAH i had the weirdest dream about you and L last night. you had this TEENY very small apartment and you left me there while you went to work or something and after you left the whole place kind of started falling apart, cabinet doors falling off, etc, and i was literally trying to hold it together, and then all of a sudden there was a cow at the back door that i was scared to let in.

if this isn’t a metaphor for motherhood, i don’t know what is.”