Kinsey’s Adventures

Well, I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek because there really hasn’t been all that much going on for awhile, as evidenced by the rare entries for some time now. My last enjoyable evening out in a queer environment was the last Dildo Bingo held at Pi Bar and Restaurant in mid-November.

Since that time, I have joined an Internet group called Community of Married Women who Love Women (CMWLW). I have corresponded with a couple of women from the group, one not too far away in northern Iowa and the other in Winnipeg. However, I sort of got derailed with regular correspondence over the holidays and the stress of a toothache, root canal work, and some family hassles. I haven’t gotten back into the swing of that in this new year of 2009 yet.

However! Kinsey is going on a little adventure next month! Oh, yes, she is!!

I made a friend through this blog, and she has extended the invitation to visit her in her warm, sunny southwestern state. I actually would go even if she lived in Vermont, but the thought of some warmer temps right now doesn’t do my mood any harm!

Through her, I have also become acquainted with a couple of other women who are good friends of hers, and I would imagine that all of us will meet while I am there in mid-February for roughly five days (arriving at noon on Wednesday and returning to the frozen tundra Sunday afternoon.)

I think that the most noteworthy thing about this trip is that I have never done anything quite like this before. With the exception of having flown to both Pennsylvania and Ohio to visit family without my husband, I have never taken a trip of this distance without him. Recreational trips have always been with him, and considering I met him when I was 15 and married him at 17, there haven’t been opportunities in my adult life to do things without him. I have never just decided to purchased a plane ticket and go see some friends for a few days.

Well, I’m going. Dave is staying home while I’m gone. He’s not even away on business while I’m gone because I didn’t want him to be. I asked him to be home and he said he’d schedule around it. I want him home to feed the cats, bring in the mail and newspaper, scoop out the litterboxes every other day or so, and check to see if the plants need to be watered. For once — just for once! — I want to be the one throwing some things in a suitcase, getting a ride to the airport, and not worrying about a thing at home because someone is home taking care of all those things. I get to leave without having to find a housesitter and/or a cat nanny and trying to think of everything that needs to be taken care of before we leave on a trip together.

I am really looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to some “me” time. I’m looking forward to some “us” time with some wonderful women. I looking forward to enriching my friendship with these women. I’m just looking forward to having some fun and basking in the delight of female energy.

Thank you, my friend, for inviting me. I’m counting down the days!

Queer Friendly Spaces

In May, I wrote the post Dildo Bingo following my very positive experience with this event at the Twin Cities’ most popular lesbian bar, Pi.   The truth is that Pi is much more than a “lesbian bar.”  I’d like to quote Joni Thome, a good friend of Pi Bar’s owner and definitely Pi family. She’s a mom, a lawyer, and a long time activist. This letter was recently published online in the Yahoo Group “Bisexual Organizing Project,” the Twin Cities most prominent social and support network for bisexual folks:

This is the only place I have ever been where the sign “everyone welcome” speaks the truth about the establishment. Many in our communities have worked long and hard to bring different communities of color, culture, age, class, sexual orientation and gender identity together in one place.  In 30 years in this community I have only witnessed two venues achieve that goal, Twin Cities Pride and Pi. And, Pi has done it in under two years!

 This is more than a bar, it’s a place that is rich in potential and one that is destined to become a community landmark. Last night I watched and celebrated the election results with my Seward and Longfellow neighbors, several punks, a group of children, postal workers, teachers, stay at home parents, students, lawyers, bankers, city and county workers, people who just lost their jobs and houses and so on.  I was at Pi and the true community spirit could not have been more intense. Then again, this night was not all that different from other evenings at Pi – whether for Dildo Dingo, a Kid Dance Party, a neighborhood wine tasting or for a fundraiser, the community spirit is present at this place. We cannot let this unique and necessary space get away.

You see, Pi may close its doors this weekend after less than two years in business.  Tara Yule, the owner of Pi, took some chances with “creative financing” when she negotiated to buy the concrete, single story building that Pi is in (a former VFW post in an inner city industrial area of South Minneapolis.)  The balloon payment has come due, and she can’t afford to meet the terms of what she now owes to fulfill the contract for deed.   She gambled that she would come up with enough money after over a year-and-a-half in business, but as we all know, the economy has been bad.

Dildo Bingo this past Thursday evening was a special event, the proceeds going towards Pi instead of to GLBT charities as usual.  The funds were to help Tara pay her staff before Pi closed its doors on Sunday.  However, the energy in Pi Thursday night was high, the joint was packed, and people are guardedly optimistic that Pi may just pull out of this financial plight.  Since it was announced during the last week in October that Pi was going to have to close, the community has come together with donations both large and small.  The last I figure I heard for sure was that $150,000 has been raised.  I know it is more now.  Dildo Bingo raised approximately $3500 Thursday night — a new record for the Dildo Bingo monthly event — and private donations are continuing to come in.  I myself wrote out a check for $100 Thursday evening and gave it to Tara, in addition to staying for all ten rounds of bingo.  (That’s why I planned in advance to take Friday as a vacation day.  I knew I wouldn’t be home before midnight, and I was right!)  It’s not much in the scheme of things, but every little bit helps.

I care about this space remaining available to the LGBT community and their friends and families, too.  This past Thursday evening was only my second time being in Pi, but I’ve enjoyed it very much both times.  I, too, have been around for awhile, my coming out occurring here in the Twin Cities in 1976 at a weekly social event called “A Woman’s Coffeehouse.”  I had gotten information about this gathering from the Lesbian Resource Center, a group I contacted within weeks after moving here.  It was held every Friday and Saturday evenings in the basement of a Minneapolis church not far from downtown.  These were quiet gatherings consisting of tea and cookies and Rice Krispie bars.  Entertainment was a musician or singer from the community.  There may have been some dancing later in the evening to recorded music.  Women would sit around and talk, eye each other up.  It was all very low-key, but this was about all there was for lesbian-oriented social activities.

I’ve seen a number of lesbian bars come and go during my time here, although I never enjoyed the bar atmosphere back when smoking was permitted indoors.  The bar crowd also seemed quite clique-ish, catering to the stereotypical dyke segment of the population.  As a bisexual woman, I didn’t fit in there.

But Pi has been different.  Or maybe the times are different and Pi has captured that.  I have felt very comfortable at Pi with its range of patrons.  I sat at a table with my trans friend, Randi Sue, Thursday evening and two trans men.  The trans community is at Pi in significant numbers.  There are young women there and middle-aged women there.  There are hippies from the 70s and Goth chicks at Pi.  There are college students, college professors, mechanics, artists, sales clerks, and actors at Pi at any given event.  I’m sure that orientation and gender run the spectrum of possibilities, and it’s all okay.  Everyone is having a good time.

Having come out during an era where a queer-friendly place like Pi was not in existence, I understand how important this establishment is.  I understand what it stands for and the values it embraces.  I know how good it feels to be there! 

I want it to stay as part of our community for all those (including myself) who need a comfortable, fun queer-friendly place to be, where everyone is accepted for who they are (valid ID required, of course!) when they walk through the door.

I’m waiting with bated breath to see what comes of the fund-raising efforts.  I hope it’s enough to keep Pi alive.

The Disappearing Rae

This latest incident — meeting someone, enjoying the experience of meeting them, only to have the next date abruptly cancelled because “I can’t do this!” — brings back a lot of memories.  I’ve been down this road before.

In my early 20s, I was actively dating women in the handful of years immediately following our move here to the BiCities.  After all, I was prime dating material from the aspects that I was a twenty-something and very attractive!  (I’d post a pic from that era to back up that claim, but that would ruin my anonymity, although I don’t think anyone who didn’t already know me would recognize my pics from 1978 or so.  Maybe sometime….) 

 I was doing something similar to what I am now in terms of meeting women — the “personals,” although at that time, there was no Internet.  There were Personals printed in the weekly publications, like The Twin Cities Reader and City Pages, that you could pick up in the wire bins in the lobbies of restaurants and bars, student hang-outs at the colleges, other business establishments.  At that time, one would write up a Personals ad, fee usually charged by the number of words, and either deliver it in person or mail it to the newspaper.  They would print it for the specified number of weeks you paid for.  They would assign you an anonymous box number, and you could either have your snail-mail forwarded to an address for a fee or go to the newspaper office and pick it up.  You then communicated with your respondents in one of two ways: a telephone call or a written letter, depending on the information they gave you.

This is how I met Rae in the fall of 1978.  She was four years older than me, an R.N. with a very intense position of being a neonatal ICU nurse in our large county hospital in downtown Minneapolis, and she lived only half-a-dozen blocks from me.  She was living with her male lover who was in his last year of medical school at the University of Minnesota.  She had never had a sexual relationship with a woman before but was interested in exploring her attraction.

We got along very well and a sexual relationship did ensue.  She even posted a notification in the Twin Cities Reader at one point, saying, “K — I’ve never met anyone as warm and wonderful as you.  I think I’m falling in love.  Love, R., R.N.”  I carried that little scrap of paper with me in my wallet for a long time!

But then things got “funny.”  I felt it coming on.  The end of that phase of our relationship came on the evening of our six-month “anniversary,” when we went out to a very nice Japanese restaurant and I gave her a card and small gift in celebration.  I was driving, and when I took her back to her apartment (she was now living alone, having broke up with the med school guy very recently), she gave me a quick peck, thanked me for the nice evening, said that it was a work night and she had to get some rest, and hopped out of the car.  I shrugged, decided then and there that she would call me next; I would make no further invitations.

I did not hear from her.  Six months later or so after our date at the Japanese restaurant, another notification appeared in the Twin Cities Reader.  It said, “K — Bisexuality is for me a very confusing place to be, but I will always remember and cherish our time together.  R., R.N.”  Since I was her first woman and she had had a longstanding history with men, including a brief marriage and divorce, I assumed that she had returned to the heterosexual lifestyle and left the unconventionality of bisexuality behind.

More than a year went by since that notification she put in the Reader.  Then I got a Christmas greeting from her in December 1980, explaining that she had been in an uncomfortable spot with me a year-and-a-half earlier, but she seemed to be in a better place.  She’d like to see me and “catch up.”  We then talked on the phone a couple of times and she invited me over to her apartment for a visit.  We had a lovely evening together.  Just fun!  We talked, laughed, caught up with each other, had some hot apple cider laced with a little “holiday cheer.”  Just had a nice evening together.  As the evening wore on, we sat closer to each other on the couch, and I think there were a couple of rather chaste kisses as the evening drew to a close.  Nothing heavy.  We wanted to see each other again and talked about doing so.

We talked on the phone a few more times and made plans to get together after the first of the year for a girls-afternoon at a St. Paul former strip club that had stopped featuring “exotic female dancers” but had gone the route of male strippers.  We were going to go and laughed at the prospect!  I was looking forward to it, just for the lighthearted silliness of it.   I needed that in a life that was pretty bogged down with full-time college courses and part-time jobs.

The day before we were scheduled to go to the Payne Reliever (on Payne Ave. in St. Paul), I received a letter from her.  (No email then, remember?)  She said, “I can’t see you again.  I thought I could but I can’t.”  I don’t remember what all it said, but it was all kind of crazy.  I’ve never had anything affect me like that letter did.  It was like a sharp slap in the face, and I burst into tears.  I sat there at my desk and cried for quite awhile.  Of course, I wrote her back and said that I was fine with being friends; I hadn’t gone into it expecting that we’d be lovers again.  I enjoyed her company, and what was so complicated about that that she couldn’t see me again, enjoy being friends with me?  I didn’t get any response to that.

THIRTEEN YEARS goes by.  A letter arrives.  I was still living at the same address I was when we had known each other in the late ’70s, early 80s.  (Same address, same husband.  Talk about stability!)  It had one of those absurd beginnings: “Remember me?”  That is such a crazy introduction to a letter when of course you remember this person!   It would be like your high school best friend or your ex-fiance in college beginning a letter that way after a lengthy absence.  Of course you remember who they are!  But anyway, she went on to say that she had actually left Minnesota for quite awhile back in the 80s, had been overseas with some medical group, had been working in California, etc., etc.  She had had a couple of lesbian relationships and had been “out” as a lesbian for all that time, much to my surprise.  However, she had moved back to the Twin Cities, had gotten involved with a Buddhist Temple (we were alike in that — ex-Catholics who became more Buddhist than anything), met a man at the Temple and married him recently, much to her friends’ surprise.  She was reconnecting with a “bisexual” side of herself.

We made plans to meet once again.  We went to the May Day celebration at Powderhorn Park in my neighborhood, a celebration that always draws a large GLBT gathering.  We went out to lunch a couple of times after that.  Talked on the phone.  We were estabishing a relationship again after 13 years apart, although a platonic relationship, I presumed.

Then…nothing after a couple of months.  No return phone calls.  No response to the notes and cards I sent.  I wasn’t surprised.  I didn’t cry.  I had become kind of callused by that point.

Looking in the phone book a year or so later, I noted that her husband was still at the same address she had given me but had reverted to his “maiden” name.  They had hyphenated their last names when they got married and both of them then went by the hyphenated name.  He was back to being just plain old “Johnson” instead of Robins-Johnson, as they had been listed before, and there was no listing for her.  Furthermore, I knew she had changed jobs because I recently had accepted a position at the HMO she was working for, and I knew from checking the employee roster that she wasn’t there.  She had done a “disappearing act” again.  Taken a powder.   

So, yeah, the long and the short of it is that this crazy kind of thing has happened before, the  “I can’t see you again” on the basis of a pleasant lunch or a nice evening.  For some people, connecting with someone and enjoying a friendship has to be a very complicated thing.  For some people, accepting the fluidity of their sexual orientation has to be a very traumatic and confusing thing.

….sigh….

Chance Encounters

I missed all the Pride festivities here in the Twin Cities this past weekend, but I had a good excuse.  I accompanied my husband to his 40th high school class reunion in an Iron Range town about a three-hour drive north of the Cities.

I’ve covered some of the highlights of that event in my general-reading blog.  I’ll just relate an enjoyable situation that is best described here in the privacy of this anonymous blog.

The Class of 1968 had a big event Saturday evening in the lobby of an old hotel in the downtown district of the town.  We started off with drinks and socializing, followed by a brief program to offer appreciation for those who put forth a lot of effort to make this reunion happen.  There was a reading of the names of the 46 classmates who had passed away and a moment of silence for them.  (46 classmates was 10% of that class.  That seems like a lot of deaths for a bunch who is only 58 years old now.  Rather disconcerting.) 

Then the browsing at the buffet line started, the drinking continued, and shortly thereafter, the DJ fired up his computer and started “spinning some tunes.” 

Now, I love to dance.  I always have.  I took five years of tap dancing lessons as a youngster and a year of ballet.   When I was in my hey-day at the skating rink as a teen, my favorite part of skating was learning the dances with a partner.  If my husband enjoyed dancing, we probably would have taken dance lessons over the years in many of its forms: ballroom, country, square-dancing, modern dance, tango, the works!  We’d enjoy it and practice together and have fun with it.   Unfortunately, this is a “mixed marriage” in more ways than one, and my husband doesn’t dance.  I’ve never mastered any of the traditional dance steps, either, because I’ve never had a partner.  

What I end up doing at these events is standing on the sidelines, moving and swaying to the music if it ”has a good beat and you can dance to it.”  That’s what I was doing Saturday night.

After a bit, a lady approached me and whispered into my ear over the thrum of the music, “If you wouldn’t mind dancing with another woman, I’d be happy to dance with you anytime.  Just come and get me!”  I smiled and nodded, and she went back to her seat.

Holy cow! I thought.  Would I mind dancing with another woman?  Hell no!  I’d love to dance with another woman!  I held back, though, because this woman was an excellent dancer.  I’d seen her out on the dance floor with who I presumed to be her husband — and for those of you who know and read my more public blog, this is the man I had complimented earlier that day for being 50 times better looking than he was as a senior in high school!  The two of them were obviously accomplished and well-practiced dancers with each other, and they had the moves down!  I enjoyed watching them together very much.

I had another drink, told my husband that I had been propositioned to dance by that dark-haired cutie-pie sitting over there by herself while her husband was out socializing with his former classmates.  I repeated to him that she told me just to come get her if I wanted to dance.

“So go get her,” was his response.  “She’s just sitting over there waiting for you to ask!”

I was intimidated by her expertise on the dance floor, though.  I finally did get out on the dance floor with several other women and boogied around for awhile.  She was out on the dance floor, too, and sidled over to me.  ”You didn’t come get me!” she pouted.

I sat out a couple of songs and then a song I really liked came on.  “Go on!” my husband encouraged.

I got my courage up and walked over to her.  She looked up at me and I held out my hand.  We went to the dance floor together and danced three or four songs together.  I really believe that she was eyeing me up, too, and I didn’t mind at all!  She was a very attractive, petite woman and I enjoyed looking at her, too, and moving with her on the dance floor.

That’s all that happened, of course.

It was fun,  though.  It was energizing.  And it added some sparks to my evening.  I hope that she and Mr. Better-Now-at-58 had a wonderful night together, however they finished it out.

Temptation

Sometime yesterday afternoon while I was at work, I got an email from Francine.  She said, “I could stop over this evening and bring some wine, a movie, and some massage oil.  I’m not an expert on massage, but maybe it would help your sore back and neck.”

I pretended that I didn’t see that email in time to encourage or decline such an invitation for last evening.  The temptation was there to accept her offer.  I’ve been very stressed lately with a combination of a very high workload right now, repetitive strain injuries that are putting me in constant pain, and a low-grade, chronic ache for some physical pampering and TLC.  I feel very low and vulnerable right now.

I closed my eyes yesterday afternoon and imagined what it would be like to accept her offer to come over with wine and massage oil.  (I knew that in the presence of wine and massage oil, the movie would never be viewed.)  Francine and I have had sex on two separate occasions — during the first week of our relationship!  It was good sex for both of us on those occasions.  I could imagine that the third time would be even better.  She was experienced in making love to a woman, and she had given me much sexual pleasure.  My mind entertained what it would feel like to share some wine and then take off all my clothes.  Maybe a nice, warm bath in the whirlpool would follow with lots of attention to massaging my back and neck as she bathed me with fragrant lather.  She would dry me with a large, soft towel, and then naked on my bed, her oiled hands would soothe and heal as she worked the tense muscles of my shoulders and neck.  I would give myself over to the ministrations until her kneading slowed and stopped.

Turning over onto my back, I would take her in my arms and kiss her, the inevitable shivers cascading down my spine and arms as her lips teased my ears and neck.   Her tongue would run along my collarbone, and soft kisses would trail down onto my breasts.  She was fairly aggressive with me before when she squeezed, pulled, and sucked my nipples, and I liked that!  I’ve developed a taste for nipple stimulation that is sometimes just to the point of discomfort.  It’s highly arousing and I wanted her to do that to me!

By the time she worked her way down to my lower belly, my musky juices would be flowing in abundance, and the merest touch of her lips and tongue to my labia and clit would send me over the edge into immediate and powerful orgasm.  It would be the first of several.

But I didn’t answer her email.  I didn’t invite her over.  One thing didn’t lead to another, and I didn’t have any of that pleasure I craved and imagined.

Why?  Because it means something different to her than it does to me in this relationship.  We’re in different places with our emotions, and I can’t take from someone like that and encourage her to go down that path of disparity with me.  It’s not fair.  It’s not caring.  Sure, one could argue, she’s willing to give it!  You’ve had the discussion.  She knows where you’re at with it.  She’s an adult and capable of deciding for herself how involved she wants to get in a situation like that.  And yet she’s still willing to give you this pleasure!   Take it!

It would be oh-so-easy under those circumstances to just take it, to indulge myself in some pleasure.  I’d make sure she got hers, too.  No worry there.  I’m not a selfish lover in that regard.  She’d go home sexually satisfied as well.

But to do that, knowing that she wants to be in love with me as well as sexually involved with me, I would have to turn a blind eye to that situation and set it aside for the sake of justifying and indulging in my own needs.  She may be a willing partner, regardless of those circumstances, but what would that say about me?  Could I be that self-centered, self-indulgent person?  Could I be that person who doesn’t want to deal with the complexities of the emotions involved, who places sex on a base plane of acts and physical responses, divorced from the concept of emotional intimacy?

The temptation is there to be that person when I’m feeling needy and vulnerable and achy for all of my own personal reasons.  But, no, I’m not that person.

The answer I had to give to myself was no.  By omission yesterday afternoon, my answer to her was no as well.            

 

Dildo Bingo

I have no one to blame but myself for how I feel this morning!  Repeat as needed….

I went to my very first EVAR evening of “Dildo Bingo” at our most popular lesbian-friendly bar here the Twin Cities, Pi.  It was my first visit to Pi as well, a newer establishment here in the Cities that is located not terribly far from where I used to live in south Minneapolis.  I wish it had been there THEN, but times have changed since then, too, and maybe the world is now ready for a place like Pi and the women (and a few guys) who go to Pi.

A friend from some posts back suggested that we do this.  I said that I’d meet her there so that I could leave when I wanted to.  I was fairly ambivalent about going last night with it being a work night, with it being a rainy work night, and with it being a rainy work night following a night that hadn’t been all that restful.  But I went, with the thought that I’d stay for a couple of hours max and then get home at a decent time to get to bed.

Dildo Bingo was a damn blast, though!  To watch and listen to the people running it up on stage was just outrageous!  They were so funny and so over-the-top with their raunchy humor, so completely uninhibited about the subject of sex, alternative sex, safe sex, and sex toys.  That’s what the prizes for each round (10 in all) were: sex toys donated by our local sex toy boutique, Smitten Kitten.  And all the proceeds from Dildo Bingo go to GLBT charities.  Dildo Bingo has raised $25,000 in charitable contributions during the past year.  Awesome!

I won, I won, I won!!   When I won, I had to yell out, “Dildo!” instead of ”Bingo,” and I did, loud and clear!   I won in Round 4 or something like that.  It must have been the “Trans” round because I won a prosthetic penis and balls to pack my pants with and a porn flick featuring FTM tranny men.  I will never pack my pants with a fake cock and ball set to impress the women (or maybe the men!), but I’ll take a look at that movie during this two-week home-alone time without my husband. 

Anyway, I had so much fun that I stay for nine of the ten rounds of Dildo Bingo.  (I was disappointed that I didn’t win in the Butt Plug round and get that new, rather nifty-looking toy to add to my collection!) It was going on 11:00 when I left Pi to head for home on the east side of St. Paul.  It was 12:30 last night by the time I got to sleep.

Well, I’ve got both eyes reasonably open and it’s time to head off to work.   

Community

I’m trying to develop a social network within the bisexual community here in the Twin Cities.  I’m trying to do my part towards supporting a sense of community for the bisexual population  within the GLBT community.  I believe in this cause.  It’s been sorely lacking in my own life, and I would imagine that many people who identify as bisexual feel the same sense of aloneness and isolation in their lives.

The only group I’ve connected with so far here in the Twin Cities that seems to have any merit in this regard is the Bisexual Organizing Project, and they have a grand total of 240 members, a handful of which participate in any social events!  That seems like a very low number considering the rather substantial bisexual population that must surely exist here in a large, liberal metropolitan area.  However, it is what it is.  (Organizing bisexuals is a lot like herding cats, a whole line of thinking reserved for another post!)

The monthly “bi brunch” is being held this Sunday at a member’s home northwest of Minneapolis, followed by the every-other-month board meeting.  I’ve vaciliated about attending.  I’ve been tending more towards going rather than not going since finding out through the Yahoo Group postings that Millie is otherwise occupied on Mother’s Day! 

I extended an offer to Anne to ride with me to the brunch and meeting on Sunday, aware that she currently does not have a car and relies mostly on public transit.  I’m not going to let that relationship of two “dates” duration deter me from getting involved with the group.  I have absolutely no ill feelings towards Anne.  I wanted to be her friend.

My husband has no ill feelings towards me being friends with Anne.  He stated that he had some trouble wrapping his head around my potential sexual involvement with trans women, and he further went on to later refine this discomfort to say that he has trouble with the concept of me getting sexually involved with pre-surgical trans women.  I understand this feeling, even though I don’t share his same level of discomfort.  I respect his feelings, especially since they were stated in a very appropriate personal ownership of these feelings without any demands, ultimatums, slams or insults in any way associated with his sharing of these feelings.

We’ve talked quite a lot about this whole situation in recent days, and I’m impressed with the level of honesty, open communication, and non-defensive sharing that has gone on.  I’ve acknowledged his feelings.  He’s acknowledged mine, and we’re learning from each other.  Saturday night, I did draw my line in the sand, which was this: “I understand your feelings about my potential sexual relationships with trans women, particularly pre-surgical trans women, but I expect that they’ll always be welcomed warmly as friends in our home and treated no differently than anyone else in that regard.” 

He was firm in his agreement of that position.  “Absolutely!” he stated.  “Of course!” 

Of course, I never expected that there would be any problem with that aspect of my relationships.  He’s a good man, not a bigot, not a “red neck,” not narrow-minded and rigid in his beliefs.  He’s trying to wrap his head around a complex set of issues, a set of issues that his own personal experiences have not covered in his life, and I respect him for the effort he puts into expanding his insights.

Anne, however, appeared to reject my offer of friendship.  The feeling I got was that if she can’t have me as a lover, then she doesn’t want my company.

So be it.  You can’t have everyone as your lover.  Some people are platonic friends, and that is well and good.

The Bisexual Organizing Project with its 240 members appears to be its own little ”Peyton Place,” with members having romantic and sexual partnerships with each other.  That seems to be a complicating factor in its dynamics.  Probably even interferes with its smooth operation at times, depending on who is sleeping with whom and who isn’t anymore, etc.!  I really would like to keep those complications to a minimum if I’m going to get more involved with this group!

Anne turned me down for the ride to the Brunch and Board Meeting on Sunday.  I told her to let me know if she changes her mind, that her contribution and input to the group is welcomed and appreciated.

I want to support this community, not do things to cause conflict and ill will.  Let’s pray I succeed.