Leading Edge Love with Sumati Sparks #OnTheRadio

Pleased and honored to announce I’ll be appearing on the Leading Edge Love blog radio program of Sumati Sparks, The Open Relationship Coach, on Tuesday, Nov 21, at 6 pm Pacific time. Mark your calendars now, so you can call in!! (657.383.1132) You can also listen to it live, or on the web, later.

I’ve been listening to past programs at SumatiSparks and they are terrific.

The conversation will flow in various directions (if you know me, you know how difficult it is to shut me up!), but here’s the general idea of what we’ll be discussing:

How do you cope with a breast cancer diagnosis while fresh into your exploration of solo polyamory? How do you ask for and accept help as needed, keep yourself and your partners happy (Hint: boundary work!), and cope with a changing body that you were struggling to love in the first place? How important is the support of community during these times? We’ll discuss these – and YOUR questions, if you call ’em in.

And in other news…

I did my first Goodreads giveaway, and like my first Facebook party, it did not kill me.  Yay for that! Just sent off the signed copies of Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n Roll, and a Tiara to my three winners.

After I got the word from Goodreads that they would let me do a giveaway, I panicked. What if I only had, like, 10 sign-ups, how humiliating would that be?

Well, I had over 600!! While I am sure that J.K. Rowling is not shaking in her shoes, this made me happy. And my copies are off to the lucky winners.

And in other, other news… I am trying to clear my procrastination crap backlog. Like this wonderful goal planner, that I spent beaucoup bucks on at the end of 2016, because 2017 was going to be all shiny and productive and organized…

Well, that didn’t happen. But luckily, the goal planner inside content isn’t tied to any particular calendar year, so I am repurposing it to 2018.

And while hanging out with and catching up with my friend, the Amazing Karen, I also caught up on my MENDING. Yes, I am one of these cheap AF frugal types who will actually mend a separated seam in a sweater or skirt, or reattach the handle of a perfectly good canvas grocery bag that has come unattached.

Also, Karen and I were drinking really, really good champagne. In case you were wondering, excellent champagne makes even the horribly dull household tasks like mending a little more sparkly.

And it was pink, of course.

CW: some ranting about sexual abuse to follow

In the midst of all this catching up with tasks and friends, lots of news broke about people (mostly men) who sexually assault others (women, teen boys others), Senate candidates who used to mack on young teens, and other unsavory characters.

It’s not an easy time, if you are a rape sur-thriver, or love someone who is. So many heartbreaking, triggering #MeToo stories.

It’s a difficult time. Please tell those sharing their stories:

#IBelieveYou
#YouDidntDeserveToBeAssaulted
#MeToo (if you feel safe sharing your stories)

Do NOT tell them:

You were lucky; I know people who were assaulted much worse.

Well, false accusations are a thing too (which is true, though they only make up a fraction of reports, and they deserve their own conversation – AT ANOTHER TIME). Can abuse victims not have the undivided attention and sympathy for, I dunno, a week, maybe even a day or two, before we once again derail and focus on how cis het men are REALLY the victims? (Apparently not.)

In the midst of this, an older article I’d overlooked came floating up into my news stream, like a turd in a backed-up toilet. John Grisham, you can go die in a fire. The consumers of child porn – the few who are actually arrested and jailed – are neither overcrowding our jails, nor is it a problem if they were. They are NOT innocent victims; they are the reason children are molested AND filmed.

What I do find encouraging is that, for however long, we are finally talking about and seemingly, becoming aware of the vast number of women, men, and children, who’ve suffered at the hands of entitled people (mostly if not entirely men). Will this be a turning point? Will the election results of November 2017, where a transgender woman unseated the homophobic bigot who wrote Virginia’s bathroom bill, where people of color and different sexual orientations and gender identities unseated incumbents across the United States, be the beginning of the end of hate?

Stay tuned. To this blog, and keep #resisting