Ups and Downs and Everything In Between

Safari is still my main browser on the Mac. It has this feature which integrates it into Apple’s Address Book and provides a drop down list of all your contacts whom you have specified Web pages for.

Well, there are very few people in my address book without web pages of some kind. Most of them are old diaries or LiveJournals. As a result, there is a long list of long-gone friends who still write in their blogs. I spent the better half of this hour randomly jumping from one contact’s page to another, just to see what they looked like.

My ex-girlfriend hasn’t written on her LiveJournal for at least 6 months. Another girl I knew who used to go to college with her has, but sporadically. A friend of mine who I never talk to anymore (she became a mother) hasn’t written in over a year. Yet another friend, a fellow bipolar whom I used to speak to for hours at a time over the phone late at night hasn’t either. Most people haven’t. Some folks have decided to keep their journals “friends only” which effectively means I can’t see them. Strange since, at one point in time, I was considered a friend.

It’s just a night of old memories. There are only a handful of people in my address book whom I still talk to.

Bedroom Full of Restless Nights

Earlier tonight, Danica and I were cuddling. I kissed her, and she seemed like she was getting into it. Before long, however, she just told me to stop for some reason which she mumbled under her breath and I couldn’t discern. I couldn’t get her to repeat it either, so I left her be. I’m probably getting tired now, but I can’t bring myself to climb into bed with her and fall asleep. Restless, I guess. No, actually, I feel rejected.

I don’t know how long its been since we’ve been truly, closely intimate. The last time we tried was more than a week ago on Monday night. I had planned to go out to Columbia University to see now-ancient acquaintences. She had initiated sex not long before I needed to get ready to go. By the time I should have been out of the house, it was over because things turned sour for some inexplicable reason and she had curtly asked me to leave her alone. I felt so hurt that I got extremely angry, and we fought for a while that night.

She has become increasingly enamored with a male co-worker, a shy and dorky musician who’s a freshman at NYU. I don’t know if it’s even been a week, but it seems as if she can’t stop talking about him. This isn’t new. There have been at least 3 others, over the course of our relationship, whom she has talked to with such fervor and frequency.

I feel more like the gay friend than the bi boyfriend these days. While there are short moments every other day or so of closeness, when I feel like her partner again, much of the time I feel as though I’m back to being a roommate, which is the term she had used to describe me to a guy she met via Friendster. That pissed me off back then, too. Though my moods may be making me biased, right now I’m having trouble remembering the last time I recieved an unsolicited “I love you” from her. I feel like the nights these days do not belong to me and her anymore. They belong to her and her fantasies about her infatuations.

The other day she made clear to me for the first time that she is most interested in having a relationship with another person together with us. That is, not just a relationship involving herself and another guy, but have that relationship involve me as well in a triad of sorts. That was something I was happy to hear about becuase of the implications of involvement and of consideration that dynamic necessitates. I don’t know how realistic a situation like that really is, but I do believe her when she says that’s her ideal and I know it would be a situation I would be infinitely more comfortable with than a situation where she has an external relationship which doesn’t involve me at all.

However, I have this gnawing concern that what she really means to do is meet someone else who she really likes and, regardless of how I feel about it, get involved with that guy. Like I said, I do believe she’d like me to like him too, and for him to like me so that there is mutually shared affection. In a way, I feel like the girl who’s boyfriend says, “Wouldn’t it be great if we met another girl and you two liked each other and the three of us could all be together?” Well, yes, I suppose it would, but my fear is that should she actually find someone she likes and the situation is one where a love connection can be made (they live nearby, there’s no age gap, there’s mutul attraction—these are the things that have been missing from the previous men she’s become infatuated with)…that if a love connection could be made, consideration for me and my feelings will be easily disregarded in favor of whimsical and lusty impulse.

During a moment of anger (or sadness? Frustration?) Danica asked me today what I have to offer her in this relationship. It was the fourth time I can recall such a direct question assessing my worth. My answer: “I do not need to sell myself to you. You will be with me if you want to be, and you will not—rather, you should not—be with me if you don’t want to. That’s not for me to decide. It’s you’re choice. It’s always been your choice. I love you, and I want to be with you.”

I guess in short my fear can be summed up in the following sentences. I am afraid that she will enter into a relationship that is not for the benefit of everyone. At Saints’ Alp Teahouse earlier, Danica finished reading one of the polyamory links I wrote about the other day. She pointed out this passage to me:

Another good way not to make a poly relationship work is to browbeat your partner, or coerce your partner into accepting it. Poly relationships don’t work if one of the people involved only grudgingly accepts it; it has to be for the benefit of everyone.

I am thinking about printing that out and gluing it to the wall.

I am also considering making this entry private, viewable only by me. I want to tell Danica all these things, but I am afraid that she will not hear them as merely concerns, but as some form of “sword of Damacles” and unfair judgements. There is probably a point where too much honesty and directness is not a good thing—and I am notoriously direct.

It’s winter now. It’s getting cold out there. Even though I’ve closed the window and no matter how deeply I bury myself in the covers, right now I’m still cold in here, too.

I guess if you can read this, then the entry is public.

Joining discussion groups about bipolar disorder has really inspired a lot of thoughts on the matter. Frankly, I don’t know why I didn’t bother to do it sooner. And on that note, here are some more thoughts. This time they’re about working with doctors when the desire to experiment with meds strikes. Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: these are just my own musings, they shouldn’t be taken as a prescription of any kind, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I Do Know Thyself

Doctors who think they always know best are crap doctors. Doctors who ask you what you think and don’t assume that they are all-knowing are the ones I want.

In my opinion, there are very few cases where I would be willing to believe that my doctor knows me better than I know myself. However, I must concede (without a second thought!) that I would be getting in way over my head if I try to pretend that I know enough about medications to start tuning my dosage by myself or believe that I have a better understanding about which medications will work better, or worse, for me.

Fact of the matter is only a professional in the field of psychopharmacology could possibly have the knowledge required to make fully informed decisions about those sorts of matters. Any confidence that I may have on the matter is purely delusional. Put a little more graciously, the best I could hope for was a coincidental success.

Trust Thy Treater

The point here is that doctors are there as guides, as confidants, as advice-givers. They are to be consulted because of their expertise in the field, but their advice is not to be taken independant of my own intuition and/or knowledge of myself. If I feel strongly about something, there’s got to be a reason for that; even if that reason is ultimately inconsequential or inaccurate insofar as reality goes the feeling deserves expression. Naturally, that’s true across the board, but it is of particular relevance here because these sorts of feelings frequently come up as the subject of doctor-patient disputes.

So here’s where building a relationship with one’s doctor, psychologist, and/or psychologist is one of the most important things one can do to improve your treatment. Never forget that you are the one in treatment, and always remember to think twice about everything you feel.

The Bottom Line

There’s some between-the-lines advice there, of course, but the bottom line is worth repeating: ask for your doctor’s advice because their advice is always worth considering. Trust that they know more than you do. The final choice, however, (if you have the necessary faculties to make a final choice, and are a legal adult, and those are issues which will not be touched upon here) is yours and yours alone. The gravity of that responsibility must not be lost on you.

Do This

To end on a more practical note, everytime I was thinking of tinkering with my meds I asked my doctor what he thought about my experiment. If he responded favorably, I told him I’d like to give it a shot and was seeking advice on how to go about the trial safely and effectively. I actually learned some important things about pharmacology that way.

If he indicated that it was a bad idea, I asked him as many questions as I could think of about why he thinks that way. Usually, I was be able to tell immediately if he was just blowing me hot air or was sincerely considering my questions. I suspect most bipolar people will be sharp enough to pick up on this. We’re known for being super slick at times, after all.

Finally, if he responded indifferently, it was time to go get another doctor.

Recently, I have been part of a very interesting conversation in the Ethical Sluts community on Orkut. After some attempts at parsing the whole thing into a blog entry, I’ve decided it would be better to simply paste the posts here in order to maintain the conversational nature of the thread. Besides, it’s easier for me to do.

I’m in green, and William (the person I had the conversation with) is in blue.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, I kissed Danica.

Her: I was just thinking about Sleeping Beauty.

Me: Yeah? What about Sleeping Beauty?

Her: It’s a story about necrophelia, you know.

The question of how to center an absolutely positioned element came up recently in a CSS forum I frequent. It’s a relatively old question that has several answers, but it’s been asked often enough imho to warrant a short discussion. CSS has given Web Designers a powerful tool to create breathtaking layouts. However, some things in CSS have necessitated a change in our workflow. Centering is a great example of such a change.

Two Forms of Centering in CSS

There are two kinds of centering that CSS can accomplish, independant of each other. One kind is center-aligning text, achieved through the use of the text-align property. The other is centering an entire block, and not the text within that block, inside its containing element. We’ll be talking about the latter.

Centering a Block-Level Element Using the Document Flow

In CSS, to center an element horizontally within its containing block its left and right margins must be set to auto. This will make the element’s left margin length equal to the length of its right margin, thus keeping the element in the center of its parent. For example, you might center your main content div like this.

div#content {
    width: 600px; margin: 0 auto;
}

(The width is necessary; it has nothing to do with being centered, but if you leave it out the div will be as wide as its containing block and will not have any margins to speak of. The margins are what cause the centering effect.)

This will work because the main content div is in the flow of the document. That is, its margins are “pushing against” their parent, so they affect the layout of the div.

Taking the Block Out of the Flow

But what happens if we take the div out of the flow, with, say position: absolute;?

div#content {
    width: 600px; margin: 0 auto;
    position: absolute;
}

Suddenly, we find that the div is no longer centered. This is because we’ve taken it out of the document flow, out from within its parent element, and now its margins have nothing to push against. So how can we center this element?

Centering the Absolutely Positioned Box

The trick is to use its positioning to center one edge of the div, and then use margins relative to its width to push it into center-alignment. Thus, you can center any absolutely positioned element that has a fixed width by giving it, for example, left: 50% and then adding a negative margin-left equal to half of the element’s width. (You could also use right: 50% and then use a negative margin-right value.)

div#content {
   width: 600px; margin: 0 0 0 -300px;
    position: absolute; left: 50%;
}

Now the content div will be centered horizontally in the browser viewport, and it will stay centered even on a window resize.

…which is not at all even close to being called “done.” But, I went over to my father’s studio today and he gave me his design ideas. He spoke, I coded, and a couple hours later we got this. He’s still somewhat in awe of the awesome power CSS has to instantly, easily, and globally alter the look and feel of a page. I’m still awed by his ability to know what would look good.

Like it? Hate it? I’m still getting used to it, but it was about time I got a designer’s help so I’m leaving it for now.

Oh, and yes, I know Internet Explorer is screwing it up again and there are some touch-ups that need to be made here and there, but I’m not up for it tonight. Comments and suggestions still welcome though. Even comments about known bugs and inconsistencies (thanks, Liz).

While I appreciate the many comments that were left on my last entry touching on this subject, I don’t think I was completely understood.

First of all, I have no problem whatsoever with the concepts of polyamory or swinging (or, for the record, monogamy). What I personally don’t like is having intimate sexual contact with someone whom I am not close to. It is a nice fantasy, but I don’t want that as a reality. I just don’t find that appealing. Others do, and I have no problem with that fact nor do I pass judgement on it either.

For each of the “lifestyles” of monogamy, polyamory, and swinging the opportunity for casual sexual encounters exists. There is no uncommon thread among them in this regard. Likewise, in each one there exists the opportunity for intensely close, deeply emotional connections, as well as emotionally intimate sexual experiences in a variety of relationship contexts. Again, there is no difference between the three lifestyles here.

The distinction between the three is merely one of math. Theoretically, monogomists have one relationship of a particular context at a time, polyamorists have more than one, and swingers come to a choice on the math based on their current relationship.

The point here is that the skills necessary to be a successful monogomist, polyamorist, and swinger are identical. These skills are a suite of emotional intelligences including self-awareness, compassion, generosity, love, patience, conflict-resolution, the ability to delay self-gratification, and communication skills. A good monogamist will be a good polyamorist. A good swinger will be a good monogamist. Again, there is no uncommon thread between monogamy, polyamory, or swinging in this regard.

The implicit reciprocal point made from the above paragraph is that unsuccessful monogamists are unsuccessful polyamorists, and so too any other relation. Unsuccessful monogamists are often called serial monogamists. Serial monogamists lack the skills necessary to maintain a relationship—any relationship—for any great length of time, and they are thus bad candidates for polyamory.

In short, serial monogamists are opaque to their partners; they do not keep their partners informed about their concerns, feelings, or other partners. They do not let their partners be involved in the making of choices which affect their lives. Good polyamorists, and good monogamists or swingers are completely transparent to their lovers, their playmates, their friends, and their crushes. That’s what makes them good at love, however they choose to express it.

I am a good monogamist. Not perfect, but very good. That’s the basis for my confidence in myself when/if (probably “when”) I will attempt a polyamorous relationship. I am not put off by the idea at all. Rather, I welcome it. It’s not something I need; I’d be just fine in whatever relationship I end up with as long as that relationship is a mutually loving and beneficial relationship for me and my partner(s). In order for a relationship to succeed at all—regardless of whether it is a monogamous or polyamorous one (or some other kind)—it must be healthy, it must be transparent.

I hope, though I admit I’m not really sure, that this is a good enough explanation of my feelings on the matter.

(As an aside, the realization that I could be happy in a completely monogamous relationship was one that came to me while I was with Danica. One of the things she said to me on the phone before we even met was, “In a good relationship, you don’t feel limited.” That stuck with me ’til now, and will probably never leave me. I hope it never does, anyway.)

Sometimes you enter your comment and hit the submit button but your comment doesn’t appear on the site. That’s normal. There is no need to re-post your comment.

The most likely reason it didn’t appear immediately is because it’s been held for moderation, awaiting my approval before it is publicly displayed.

A comment may be held in the moderation queue for several reasons:

• Your comment contains at least one word from a list of common spam words. Words like prescription, viagra, and others are part of this list.
• Your comment contains certain potentially offensive expletives or phrases. This is supposed to be a civilized corner of the Web.
• Your comment contains more than a set number of links. Spammers like to link to their own site for publicity and Google page rank reasons. I don’t want to help them out.
• Your comment exceeds a certain (albeit really high) number of characters. If you have that much to say, you’ll probably want to use your blog software’s Trackback or Pingback functionality to comment here.

Also, I reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or otherwise screw with your comments so it’s possible I’ve gone mad and decided to explicitly prey upon your (and only your) comments for the duration of this site’s existence. However, I generally won’t do something like that unless you deserve it.

I’ve been sick for the past few days with a really bad sore throat. I thought I was getting better, but this morning I woke up and started coughing up phlegm like a mother seagull feeding her chicks. (Yes, a lovely image, I know. Try going back to your breakfast now.)

Feeling Dismissed

Last night Danica and I fought again. I almost left to go sleep at my father’s or my mother’s, but Danica begged me not to so I stayed. It started when Danica read this (a page she has not yet finished and which I first asked her to read a couple of days ago):

No. Cheating is breaking the rules. If you aren’t breaking the rules of your relationship, you are not cheating, by definition.

The rules need not be explicit; even breaking the tacit rules of a relationship is cheating. If you do anything you cannot feel comfortable telling your mate about, or if you do anything which you know would make your mate unhappy if he or she knew about it, you are cheating, plain and simple.

Polyamory is a completely different way to define your relationship. Polyamory is an acknowledgment of the simple fact that relationships do not come in “one size fits all.” In a poly relationship–

It was the second sentence in the second paragraph that specifically started it. (…or if you do anythin which you know would make your mate unhappy if he or she knew about it….) Danica didn’t agree with it, made her opinion known, and when I tried to explain why it was absolutely correct as far as I was concerned she acquired this…dismissive tone of voice that really, really made me angry.

I was at my mother’s house today. I went to go set up a VNC server and install a new anti-virus program on my brother’s home computer, which he access remotely from his college dorm room.

(Actually, I should really get around to writing an article about anti-virus services and programs. That’s another one of those cases where people usually end up paying for things they don’t have to.)

Anyway, I came home, made myself some pasta, and while I was eating it (I have yet to finish a bowl), Danica wanted to go out to get cupcakes. It was 11:10, and the bakery closes at 11:30, so we needed to hop to it. We were out the door a couple minutes later.

At the bakery, a male employee was in front of the door, holding a “Sorry, we’re closed!” sign. A few customers were still picking out pastries inside, though. I looked at him and said, “Just two minutes?” He looked back at me, glanced over at Danica, and said, “All right, go ahead.”

I thanked him, stepped inside, and then he said to me, “You have two minutes,” and when Danica stepped in behind me he told her, smiling, “You have four minutes.”

GRRRRROWL!!!

It’s not as if this is the first time something like this has happened to me. The most blatant example of people’s general pigheadedness in this regard I’ve encountered was by a doorman who wouldn’t open a door for me when I was carrying four (that’s 4, as in two more than as many hands I have) hot, large-sized Starbuck’s coffee cups, several dozen napkins, and some sugar packs. I was struggling with the door for at least 30 seconds when a woman walked by, for whom he opened the door, and I managed to slip into the building.

You know, I may not be much to look at, but that’s no reason to treat me any differently than someone who is. And you know what else? I’ve come to terms with the fact that it will mean I am treated differently, across the board, throughout the rest of my life. That’s just the fucked-up, cruel laws of nature and society that happen to make a lot of sense. Sucks for me, but good for the species, I suppose.

Sigh.

The really bothersome thing about the whole thing, and the reason it even stuck with me long enough for me to write this entry, is that I’m not usually affected by this—at all. Sure, it happens all the time, but I don’t usually get pissed about it. I’m pissed about it because I’m not in a secure place regarding my social and sexual abilities right now. This encounter was one of the things that reminded me about that today. The others were some of the things Danica has said about her male co-workers. (She just got a new job at a Barnes and Noble café.)

Again, I’m not usually upset by any of these things. It’s not as if she’s pulling her co-workers into the warehouse and screwing them, either. But apparently I’m insecure enough in this relationship to have that image pop into my head. That’s not good. That’s not the kind of person I want to be. That’s not the kind of relationship I want to have.

I want to be able to listen to her talk about the cute guys she works with and not feel my heart sink. I want to listen to her talk about the customers who wink at her when she smiles and not feel jealous of them. I even want her to meet someone she likes and wants to get intimate with and be happy for them. (Yes, really.)

But that’s not going to happen right now. I’ve felt too hurt from Danica in the past on this subject to make it a realistic expectation for me. I spent a good deal of time fighting off feelings of failure and guilt about that, too. Well, it’s not my fault. I have some fears and some irrational concerns. I’ve been working through those. Mostly, however, I’ve not got enough trust in her committment to me or our relationship to feel like it would be “no big deal” to have her having casual sexual relationships with other people.

That sort of thing is nothing to take lightly. There is nothing “casual” about a casual other relationship to your partner. And that makes a whole lot of natural sense, too. Sucks for her, but good for the species, I guess.