From Maria In Absentia

By Maria Padhila

I miss you all! For the past few weeks, I’ve detached myself from almost all reading and contact that doesn’t have to do with a project I’m working on. (It’s a book looking at a certain aspect of medical history — and nothing my name will ever appear anywhere near, but it pays the bills and is a subject I can get on board with, so that’s pretty fortunate.)

I miss the Planet Waves comments most of all — I don’t know how this bunch is so consistently intelligent, thoughtful, funny, passionate, provocative and troll-free. I look at a lot of online media (when I’m not on a fast as currently), and it really is unique.

I’ll be back writing, but I’m still aiming this year (solar return Sun in 12th house) to say no to activities a lot more often. Sometimes I find doing more gives me more energy and ideas; but in the past year I went past that point and the constant activity was instead making me suck at everything. Some of us have to get burned out to learn the simplest things. I’ve even put my Facebook account in an induced coma and minimized any online activity.

If you’re starved for poly talk, ideas and contact, you might want to check out the Loving More conference, in early February. Theater creator and counselor Kamala Devi, of the Showtime series “Married and Dating” about polyamory, is the keynote speaker. I went last year, and she gave a workshop that was very beautiful and a lot of fun. The group there struck me as more laid-back, stable and thoughtful; it’s not a swinger or ‘next generation’ type event, or at least wasn’t last time. Check it out for yourself and let me know how you liked it! 

And I’ve been trying to avoid media but this story has been unavoidable for the few days. So, why does a religious school defend at considerable expense and effort an imaginary relationship that could have involved, at best, lying and at worst fraud, yet people from the same group denounce other people’s real, honesty-based relationships? I guess if the fraudulent relationship is between two heterosexuals who don’t have sex, it’s great, but ‘god’ forbid a real live gay couple should get married (much less the rest of us do what we do). A Salon article contrasting the Te’o hype with the comparative silence around other players’ alleged activities is the saddest and most infuriating comparison I’ve read about the Notre Dame issue, however.

And yay independent journalism, by the way. Y’all should just take over the comments from here and throw down about whatever relationship stuff is on your minds! How about it?