polyam

Another Anniversary?

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Wednesday was the fourth anniversary of collaring boy s – in kink terms a form of commitment not unlike marriage – it was just a shame that both of us were too unwell to celebrate much of anything. I was staying over anyway so it was largely a day of napping in between doing the school run and doing some more work on the Amazon store.

We’ve decided instead to try and have a date night in the next week or so once payday has arrived and we’re in better health.

What we do all have to anticipate however is that we’ve got tickets for the Thorpe Park preview day on Saturday thanks to his working there. We’ve not been on any rollercoaster since before the first lockdown. Lady M has had her eye surgery since then too, so this will be the first time on them without glasses or contact lenses.

So, highs and lows and literal rollercoasters to come. Can’t wait.

A little Change

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In my post a few days ago about my Equalities Journey, I talked about the amazing trans man in my life and I realised that for some if you it may not be immediately obvious who I’m talking for about. Given that I’m polyamorous it may even have seemed a possibility that it was announcing someone new.

I was in fact talking about myr s, who has been socially transitioning over the last year. During this time, by his request, I’ve been using gender-neutral terms on the blog to talk about him and this was in part because there were people to whom he had not felt able to talk to about things.

This changed last week, and so while asking if he minded my referring to him in the Equalities blog posts at work and here, we also talked about evolving his title here as well. With his being my sub, we felt that the usual Sir or Lord that I tend to use would not feel right and he wanted to keep the lack of capitalisation as well.

So as of today, may I introduce you to boy s, and what a relief it is to be catching up here with how we talk to him in the real world.

As a cosplayer, there may be a temptation at some point to do a dad-bod Kratos just so I can shout “boy!” across a crowded hall…

Together Again

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At long last we’ve been able to get all together. I took advantage of the good weather and a gap in my rota to call out for us to gather. Christmas presents needed exchanging for one thing

And I’m so glad we did all get together. We met in one of the local parks and the relief and happiness all round has been just what we all needed.

It’s a shame we couldn’t stay down there, but we do at least have the game tomorrow to look forward to.

Birthday Gathering

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We managed to get most of the DDC together this afternoon in East Brighton Park to celebrate the birthdays of Mre B and myr s – despite the best efforts of my satnav to take us along every B road between us and there rather than using the motorways.

I chose to treat lightly its choice to direct us through the village of Faygate, or to keep telling us to “stay straight” along the road.

I managed to dissuade Lady M from buying the complete stock of our local Tesco too, as she went into mother hen “feed everybody” mode. I’m not saying that her anxiety was becoming infectious, but I swear I saw people hurrying to buy what we’d left on the shelves like it was toilet paper at the beginning of lockdown.

There was a play park for the cub, a tree to partially shelter from the elements under, and cupcakes and a cupcake cake that ended up being served into cups for distribution. All par for the course really.

We’re home now, tired and glad of having had a quiet time together, enjoying each other’s company without feeling a need to perform or fuss. Nice.

Wet and Windy Morning

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Its all looking and sounding a bit blustery out there today, so I’m staying under the duvet with a coffee provided by Lady M and appreciating the new plump pillows I bought the other day.

I’d forgotten the difference new pillows can make. We keep saying how much better we’re suddenly sleeping with notes of wonder in our voices.

Its restoked the thought of replacing our bed. We’ve had it a few years and its still comfortable but every now and then we do wake up aching, and not in a good way.

Adding to the sense of urgency on that front is that myr s and the cub may be moving in, and if so we’ll need to upgrade to a king size if we’re to have any hope of sleeping entirely peacefully without someone having to take turns on the sofa.

There are worse problems in life, I know. For now I’m just going to recline here, play some games on my phone for a while before I get up and do some more designs for the redbubble store.

Lady M Endures

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Lady M has started to phase back to work this week, despite being in near constant pain. We’re waiting to hear back from an oncologist and hoping for an all clear. That would mean that the cysts are reducing on their own and won’t need surgery.

I’m pretty sure that the heat and stress aren’t helping with the pain, and we could have done without the gang that came round the estate in the early hours of the morning stealing catalytic converters off any Prius they could find. Its all go here.

Feeling hot, hot, hot…

What has been productive has of course been new additions to the redbubble site at https://ludd72.redbubble.com and helping myr s with graphics for their Twitch gaming setup. I’m particularly proud of myr s for managing to attain Twitch affiliate status so quickly under the name MorganRileyGaming. They’re working incredibly hard and making it look easy.

Still in Limbo

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Lady M is still in hospital while the doctors battle to get her condition under control. There are a number of opinions on the exact extent of the infection but surgery is being actively considered. We think the plan is to see if her condition has improved enough by the morning to decide how to proceed.

Not being able to visit is frustrating, but understandable, but we did get one bright moment in that the hospital was able to accommodate both myr s and myself as next of kin under the heading of partners. Its a small thing but it does make a difference.

People keep reminding me to take care of myself too, prompted in no small part in how I appear not to have slept in a couple of days. I’m keeping busy, but work have been very good as and when I’ve needed to slip away every now and then.

Onward!

Rings and Things

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Being separated is hard, but we’re doing our best to keep as chipper as possible. The DDC is helping lift our spirits and support all round, but its still no substitute for when we can get our polycule back together.

In theory, we can after relaxation of restrictions were announced, but given how high infections and deaths are – exceeding what they were when we went into lockdown – there’s a wariness of believing the UK government’s competence and motives. In some ways this makes it even harder, but we’ll get through and it’ll be all the better for it when we do.

In the meantime, I finally had delivery of a set of rings that the core triad of myself, Lady M and mre S wanted to adopt to signify our link. We had some issues with a lost shipment and needing to reorder among the chaos of lockdown, but we finally have three simple matching rings that are staying in their boxes until we can all get together. They’re enamelled steel with the polyam symbol etched and painted on them – simple, discrete, and one more reason to hope for better times to come.

I was talking to a colleague yesterday after an LGBTQ+ staff network Teams meeting about the DDC and our gaming group.

On describing the mix of characters and their quirks I was told that it was a group they’d love to read a novel about. I think thats a wonderful tribute to the invention and warmth of the players and their alter egos. My little writeups here barely scratch the surface of what a joy they are to DM and game with.

DDC Shenanigans

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Life continues to ebb and flow in its complexities, but the DDC continues to be a creative and entertaining source of comfort, support, and humour in all the oddness around us.

Our latest set of things has been creating quizzes and games to play through shared screens in Discord. Whoever is running the quiz sets up a PowerPoint document with questions and answers revealed in turn, while everyone works together to find the answers. Mre B created the template based on their running similar things with their friends, and myr s has taken up the baton to create rounds tailored to our various strengths and foibles.

Roughly once a week we gather of an evening to play. We start with general levity, and yet despite there not being any competition between players, there’s soon a very serious air as people try to identify TV theme tunes from sight reading music, interpret kinks by their formal clinical names, identify pop culture characters from pets dressed up as those characters, and puns based on shows where one character has been changed – and that was just for starters.

Lateral thinking, chat, and everyone trying to resist googling any answers – a fun combination that is proving as much a draw as the weekly Dungeons and Dragons session.

Oh, and then we used Roll20 to make a Trivial Pursuit board and grabbed four different sets to make a monstrous random hodgepodge of topics from Star Wars, Stranger Things, Harry Potter, and a general family edition. That got very silly, very fast. We’ll have to do that again…

The Unexpected AMA

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We did a thing this weekend, quite unexpectedly, when Lady B messaged the polycule to ask if we’d be willing to gather on Discord and be part of an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on her Facebook stream.

As followers and supporters of her series of streams about her experiences of transition, we of course agreed. A couple of hours and some muffled stubbing of toes later, we were gathered round our respective devices for what was intended to be a quick half hour that turned into an hour and a half of us spinning off on tangents and laughing a lot.

I’ll add a link below to the streams recording – but I must add that the first five to ten minutes is completely silent due to a technical hitch known as “flicking the wrong switch” in Lady B’s kit.

Nevertheless, it was fun, and a good chance to talk a bit about who we are and how we relate, and our thoughts on being the oddballs that we are. So, enjoy the stream.