Wine, of the fancy pants variety

For years now Wendy and I have gotten our wine via bottle-it-yourself places.  If you bottle your wine yourself you don't pay the extremely large tax rate, which I assume was meant to apply to people making their own wine at home.  I feel strange using such a service because they are so obviously a ridiculous tax dodge that brings no value whatsoever.  They do all the work up until I show up at their door and use their machines to put wine into my bottles.  If I am bad at bottling, they will basically do it for me, removing even the paper thin excuse for tax avoidance.

I don't much like patronising businesses whose entire model is 'tax loophole!' but it does save me a lot on wine costs and I also hate paying full price.  Hatred and bitterness either way, I guess.

One thing that has come up over the years is the terrible ugliness of the wine bottles.  I put labels on them each time so we know what they are, but I have no desire to spend hours scrubbing and scraping to get the labels off, so the labels just stack up as I put new ones over top of the old ones.  This time round some of the labels were five deep on the bottles and they began to peel off, creating quite a mess.

This is what comes of years of labels of different sizes slapped onto bottles and eventually stripped off in a slapdash sort of fashion.  I put new labels on these of course but the new labels did not cover up the mess at all.  Every bottle still has lots of shredded paper and glue sticking out from under the new label, and naturally the labels aren't sticking perfectly so the new ones peel off some on their own.

I don't mind this in the least.

Hell, I like it.  I take a perverse pride in using things as long as possible.  If my shoes look a ruin but are functional I take it as a point of pride - I am not wasting materials by buying new shoes!  I like to reuse bottles and I don't care at all that it shows, rather I am happy to model the behaviour I want to see in the world - reusing of stuff.

Wendy is not on board with this.  In theory she loves the idea of conservation and reusing things, but in practice she cringes at the idea of serving wine to guests in a bottle covered in ripped paper and glue stains.  I am filled with glee at the idea of serving wine while saying "See this haggard old bottle?  The wine in here was CHEAP.  Woo, inexpensive inebriation!"

Other people don't seem to buy into that so much.  They usually like the idea of reuse, but they really seem to think I ought to put a little more effort into my presentation.

The trouble is it isn't a matter of laziness.  I don't eschew presentation because I can't be bothered.  I do it rough and ready because I actually prefer it that way.  If someone offered to make all my bottles of wine pretty and high class for free I would turn it down - that isn't what I want.

I am going to continue down this path, I think, peeling off huge masses of labels only once they become totally unworkable.  I would happily just stop using labels altogether but other people have strictly forbidden me to do this on the basis that they want to know what they are drinking.  I figure it is all red wine right, so who cares?  You aren't going to turn it away because it is Barolo instead of Cabarnet, are you?  So just drink it!  But others have this thing about wanting to have a name for the stuff they are about to pour down their throats.  Fancy pants attitude, that.

The end of all farms

Over the New Year holidays I went to Farmageddon for the first time.  Farmageddon is an event held by a gamer buddy of mine, Umbra, where people from all over Canada and the US show up to play board games at Umbra's place.  The name comes from the fact that about half of the games played were Agricola, a game about building a farm.  It is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to do with my life when I was younger, and if I had enough money to actually own a place that could manage this sort of thing I would totally do it myself.

Unfortunately given that I live in Toronto and I don't have a house worth a couple million, that dream is not happening for now.

Fortunately I got to do it anyway, even without the ludicrously expensive house.

It felt a lot like the World Boardgaming Championships.  Farmageddon isn't the same thing because it isn't at the same scale and isn't as focused on structured competitions but most of the people at the event were people I knew from WBC and the vibe was very much the same.  We weren't competing for trophies though, just playing great games with people we like and trying to learn as much as possible from all the talent in the room.

The story of Farmageddon for me, in terms of raw winning, is 2nd.  I got some 1sts, and some 3rds, and a few 4ths, but by and large I came 2nd.  In that crowd I will take that record without any worry - I was learning a lot of games for the first time and we were playing a version of Agricola I had only glanced at once, so I certainly didn't rate to win a lot of games.

Winning wasn't really the goal though, the goal was learning, and I did a ton of that.  I learned a bunch of new games and determined that I really need to own several of them.  I got a lot better at the new version of Agricola too and that feels good.

The food was done in a way that was kind of hilarious.  Umbra bought a truckload of food and the shelves were groaning with it all at the beginning of the week.  People were welcome to just grab whatever they wanted and so people would randomly pull stuff out of fridges or out of pantries and fill themselves up when they needed.  Also we did a bunch of cooking so that many meals were some giant thing put together for the group to share.

This led into one of my struggles during the week.  It was clear that Burbling and Umbra were doing nearly all the kitchen work, and they weren't getting the help they needed.  I get that people don't want to step into a kitchen they aren't familiar with, but the cooks shouldn't have to do all of the dishes from the previous meal to start cooking the new one unless they are getting paid... and they aren't, in this case.  My response was to help cook a handful of meals and do all the dishes a similar number of times, but though I was disappointed that so few people were willing to help out in such a fashion I didn't try to push chores on anyone.

I wonder if me being a homemaker really changes my view on this.  When I see a meal being prepped, I see those dishes.  I know that *somebody* is washing those dishes, they aren't getting clean by magic.  Maybe if you aren't the one who is always going to have to wash the dishes you kind of ignore that stuff... I don't know.  What I do know is I absolutely cannot stand by and watch someone get buried under work that other people should be helping with.  I know how I would feel if it were my house and I didn't get to play because I spent all day washing, so I assume other people feel the same way.

At the end of the day I settled for calling people out in a positive way on social media and asking for people to help out next year.  I know how hard it is for big events to keep volunteers, and a critical thing to making this sort of stuff continue is making sure that people who help don't feel taken advantage of and that they see everyone pitching in. 

Maybe next year I will really go for it and make a sign up sheet for chores.  That way nobody can avoid realizing that there is shit to do and somebody's gotta do it.  If I really want to hit people in the guilt I will just fill in Burbling's name for all the chores and then ask people if they want to cross her name off and add their own for something... or if they think she should just do it all and leave the sheet as it is.  Depends on how passive aggressive I am feeling, I guess.  I could put my own name on all the chores instead, but I think people would just leave my name on an awful lot of spots.  The penalty for being a loudmouth with a penchant for shouting "BRING IT", I suppose.

All this said, Farmageddon was grand and I am looking at next year already because I want to be back there, doing that thing again.  I want it to continue year after year, and the best way to do that is make sure that the people that make it happen feel appreciated and supported in the work they do.  I want all this because Farmageddon felt like the Comfy Lounge at UW, or WBC - it felt like home;  Doing stuff I love with people I adore.

Nice house

This Christmas I got to see my brother in law's new place.  He and his wife have a huge house in the suburbs, in the sort of place where the idea of a pedestrian is laughable and the driveways are full of expensive, new vehicles.

I had no idea how to talk about the house.

I know I am supposed to say it is a nice house.

And it certainly is pretty, tidy, and well built.  No denying any of that!  But it makes me feel so odd to be in such an enormous place.  Six bathrooms.  So many ovens.  Two washer and dryer sets, only a dozen steps from one another.

My brain is saying that nobody needs all this stuff and all this space.  More than that, the money involved in making these ridiculous extras (the extra washer and dryer is the thing I can't get over) could have done so many more useful things for people with so much less money.

It isn't as though my brother and sister in law have done anything wrong - they earned their money, they bought a gigantic house that they are really excited about.  It is more that being in such a place really slams home to me just how warped the system is that people have so much, especially since they aren't even the super wealthy.  They don't have ten million dollars, much less 100 billion dollars.  Their wealth is nothing compared to some, and they are just existing in a system they did not create.

But it still leaves me at a loss.  To ignore it, to just pay bland compliments, feels like being complicit in the extreme disparity of wealth in the world.  On the other hand I can't see how I help anything by turning a house tour into a rant about wealth inequality either.

If I am honest, it is also just an artifact of how much money I have.  I know plenty of people who must feel the same way seeing my condo simply because I own it and they see no prospect of ever having that much wealth for themselves.  Any time you are out of your element in terms of social status and wealth it feels weird.

Am I just creating all this because I feel strange being around people who have so much more than me?  Maybe.  Hard to say. 

Small family Christmas

For many years now I have always done the big family Christmas thing.  Sometimes I was up north with my parents, sometimes I was in Toronto with Wendy's parents, but we invariably did the big thing.

Not this year.

We did a family celebration with Wendy's family on the 23rd, but for the 25th it will just be me, Pinkie Pie, and Wendy.  We are going to sit at home, play some Gloomhaven together, and make homemade pizza.

It is a watershed moment for my inlaws, I suspect, since they have always done family Christmas on the 25th with all the family that is available.  We just want to do something different, and honestly more our speed.  My little family has 3 introverts and we really enjoy just doing quiet things. 

Sometimes kids want all the things and all the fuss, but our small one (not so small, really, since she is now as tall as Wendy) likes minimal fuss.

We have our little tree with just a few presents under it.  It really feels like it matches us as a group, this year, because we are doing a little Christmas.

I am looking forward to a little Christmas a great deal.  :)

A good role model

I struggle sometimes with talking about polyamory and relationship anarchy when they happen to be combined with problems I have.  When you are part of a marginalized group there is tremendous pressure to present the best possible face to the world, to convince them that there is nothing wrong with you.  When a monogamous person says they are sad because of a breakup, for example, they have no worries at all that people will say "Well, this is what you get when you are monogamous.  Your own fault, really."  People in other relationship structures hear this kind of thing all the time, because people love to find excuses to punish those who do not conform.

The same sort of thing applies to all kinds of people, of course.  Disabled people, queer people, the list goes on.  The pressure to provide a 'perfect' front so as to avoid criticism is real.

I read a blog post today by a well known poly blogger talking about this subject as it relates to their struggles with anxiety.  I liked it because it felt like it mirrored my own experience with being told that I have to shut up because telling my truth in my own space was somehow dangerous to other people.  Really it is just dangerous to the current social order but quite frankly the current social order can use some shaking up so that is an upside to me, not a downside.

When I am pushed to shut up, to hide, to lie, to cover up, it makes me furious.  Director is willing to blend, to bend, to accommodate, but Passion lights up with incandescent rage at the idea.  When I am asked to stop talking to spare other people's feelings about my life Passion just wants to paint my words on the side of a skyscraper instead.  You don't like reading about my life?  Then don't.  You want me to shove myself into a corner so my life is more acceptable to you?  Get used to disappointment or leave, either way.

I am lucky though.  I have tons of privilege so people are mostly not willing to have that fight with me.  Also the people in my life are largely aware that trying to control me like that will lead to nothing good so they generally don't bother.

It is good to read about other people in the same situation.  It helps provide some extra certainty that I am doing the right thing, and some days I need that.

A sad song

I broke up with The Flautist recently.  I haven't been blogging much here in part because that has been occupying my mind a lot and I wasn't sure how to talk about it.  It is difficult and sad, but it was the right thing to do for me.  I have some guilt, for sure, about the hurt I am causing.  Despite that though, not doing so would just make a bigger mess for later, so I won't do that.

A challenge has been the way I think about breakups.  I often say that people don't change, and you shouldn't be in a relationship expecting them to.  Accept that how they are is how they will be.  That isn't exactly true, of course, as people do change.  But if they generally changed for the better, then old people would be paragons in relationships.  They would fulfill their partners and communicate flawlessly and make it all wonderful.  We all know that old people are bad at relationships the same way that young people are though, so clearly there isn't a big trend towards improvement.  While partners may change, they will as likely change in ways you don't like as ways you do.

This way of thinking creates its own problems.  I don't yell and scream and demand my partner do things differently.  I say what I want and how I feel, but it isn't a big mess.  That is usually appreciated, but it can fail to get my message across when I really don't like something.  I can't be in a relationship that requires me to have emotional explosions to communicate how I feel, but when many or even most people are used to communicating that way, my messages get lost.  If my partner is doing things that hurt me, I either decide I can deal with it, or I leave.  No explosions or ultimatums.  Not my style.

I am really not interested in assigning blame.  I find that many people love to hate their exes, and I don't hate any of mine.  My attitudes range from fondness (even love) to indifference, but no anger is to be found.  Surely there is fault in everyone, no one is without error, and trying to cast all the blame on one person (whether or not it is yourself, or the other person) is usually just a sign of insecurity, not reflective of fact.

I prefer to think of it like this:  It was good.  Until it wasn't.  And now that it isn't good any more, it is time to be away from it.  That doesn't mean the relationship can never be rekindled, but it does mean at a minimum that space apart is needed to approach a new beginning cleanly.

There is one particular song that speaks powerfully to me when I am feeling this way:

New normal

The first time a giant ball of steel swinging from a long chain came within 4 meters of my window I was somewhat perturbed.  It is kind of unnerving to watch a thing that is hanging loose and which would crush me flat if it hit me wander so close by.  Makes you wonder if the person driving the crane *really* knows what they are doing.  I mean, I assume they are competent.  But am I going to die ten seconds from now?

But that happened months and months ago.  Now the crane wanders right past my window all the time and I barely even register it.

Just like cars, really.  If you take a person who has no idea about cars and tell them they are going to zoom down a road at 100 kph in a metal box and other metal boxes going 100 kph the other way are going to pass within a meter of them they would think you are suicidal.  What if the person driving the other box twitches, just for a second?  Doesn't everybody die?  Can you really trust all the random buffoons in the human race not to kill you?

Mostly you can, it turns out.  Some of us die, but generally we barrel down our highways, zooming right past each other, and everything works.

We tend to get upset about things changing, but when we don't manage to push them back we rapidly come to accept the new normal, no matter how weird it would have seemed before, and just shrug and stop noticing.

I wonder what things I currently take for granted will suddenly strike me as bizarre when I finally stare at them really hard.  Sometimes I look at my phone and try to remember what it was like to not have one and I can barely do it.

Which is all to say that I continue to be surprised by humanity's flexibility.  We so often hate change, but then we quickly adapt and not only stop caring, but even stop noticing the stuff that is new.