tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post6595199213914739947..comments2024-02-23T03:38:53.049-05:00Comments on The Pervocracy: Autographs, photographs, and love.Cliff Pervocracyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02080142422250604406noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-90875313758336108832012-07-26T00:47:37.198-04:002012-07-26T00:47:37.198-04:00Oh, wow. I realize this is an old post, but I was...Oh, wow. I realize this is an old post, but I was recently linked to your blog (from yesmeansyes maybe?) and I have been reading through your archives. But this is really hitting me hard right now. <br /><br />I've been in a relationship for 5.5 years, married for 4. For the last year we've been open-ish.... had a dont ask/don't tell thing, at my request. But the stress of sneaking around and hiding just became too much once I found a lover I really cared for, and I recently told my husband that I need to be able to be more open about this with him, communicating, and it's really really stressing that relationship. To the point where we may end up getting divorced. Because I can't be monogamous, and I also can't spend the rest of my life feeling like my partner and I aren't on the same team. <br /><br />But at the same time, my lover now has a monogamous girlfriend, and we're over. For now, he says. For the indefinite future. But let's be friends, he says. Only now we barely talk.<br /><br />And this double whammy of greif and stress has me so depressed I wonder if shit is even worth it. But I try to console myself with the thought that my husband and I have had a good run, even if it ends now and I feel like my life is over. And what I had with my lover this summer was beautiful and brilliant and intense. And it was good. But I don't know if I really believe that, that it was worth it. <br /><br />And so this post just has me all in tears.Ellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17604129096207687053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-3229675069477083022010-12-24T23:04:35.447-05:002010-12-24T23:04:35.447-05:00I'm like Ozymandias. I rarely ever take pictu...I'm like Ozymandias. I rarely ever take pictures but I try to keep written records of all the important moments in my life so that I don't forget the bits and pieces. But I suspect it has less to do with the inferiority of photos and more to do with, yeah, just not being a very visual person. The mental images I conjure up rereading what I've written are way more vivid than the pictures I can take--and the flow of the moment does't get interrupted.<br /><br />--AndyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-29622827664243748392010-12-23T13:50:12.454-05:002010-12-23T13:50:12.454-05:00everything that I can only remember bits and piece...<i>everything that I can only remember bits and pieces of or sometimes things that only get triggered by a glance at a photo</i><br /><br />Yes, this. I'm a very visual person, and photos are an important aspect of my life and my memories. Looking at photos does indeed make me feel as though I am back at that time, just like smells can instantly draw you back. Those are very real feelings. If they weren't, well, "triggers" wouldn't be such an issue for rape victims such as myself (I only mention that so people don't think I'm being insensitive by making the comparison). <br /><br />You might not be back in the actual moment, but it can feel as though you are. Your body knows no different. I accept the bad as well as the good with that when it comes to photos and video.<br /><br />Whilst I can see problems with obsessively needing to document and view life experiences through lenses (people who go to concerts and spend the whole time viewing it through their camera as they film it for example) I don't consider the time spent capturing a few of those moments as wasted.Sidnanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-23705654809184862502010-12-23T12:27:25.689-05:002010-12-23T12:27:25.689-05:00This definitely touches a nerve for me. I was a m...This definitely touches a nerve for me. I was a mono person, and started dating a poly person. It was good. Things went along just swimmingly. Then they started getting more serious. I started to think about "maybe a future together" - not picket fences and two cats in the yard, mind you - just a long term continuation of what we had right then.<br /><br />She ended it not too long after, saying that her life with her primary was too stressed by our relationship.<br /><br />I went into the relationship with an open mind and an open heart. I loved as thoroughly as I could, and was loved to the extent she was able.<br /><br />It was a glorious thing while it lasted.<br /><br />and when it ended, it ripped my heart out.<br /><br />and I'd do it all over again, given the chance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-28332723512540502922010-12-23T01:59:05.573-05:002010-12-23T01:59:05.573-05:00How curious. I just earlier this afternoon was rum...How curious. I just earlier this afternoon was ruminating also on the knowing of future pain in relationships and how it warps our sense of enjoyment in the now, on my other, more private blog. In my case, it's the anticipation of possible hurt inherent to a poly person dating a mono person. Le sigh. But still, the joy is worth it.Arihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00234258178787623615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-42876784212380275672010-12-22T23:54:48.743-05:002010-12-22T23:54:48.743-05:00Yes. This. SO this.
If I want to record my though...Yes. This. SO this.<br /><br />If I want to record my thought process at a given time, I'll write, not have a picture. Writing gives me more information, anyway, and can be done after the fact.Ozymandiashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08410555827569922830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-16958975123646333992010-12-22T23:54:04.729-05:002010-12-22T23:54:04.729-05:00(Also, I feel like staying with someone forever no...<i>(Also, I feel like staying with someone forever no matter what is about as pleasant as a thirty-year-old crippled cat with cancer still staggering helplessly around some farm.) </i><br /><br />Fucking right. Sometimes, I tell my bf that I want to grow old with him...and then I'll always add "...y'know, as long as things keep being as good as they are now." Because honestly, if he started being a bastard one day I wouldn't want to stick around. I already did that for nine years with my now-ex husband.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-25247811038706872972010-12-22T23:47:29.825-05:002010-12-22T23:47:29.825-05:00I didn't think photos meant anything, until my...I didn't think photos meant anything, until my mom took all my baby pictures away when she ran off. Now, I really wish I could look back and see how I looked as a kid, how my little sister and I played, everything that I can only remember bits and pieces of or sometimes things that only get triggered by a glance at a photo.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-25973734354626309812010-12-22T18:54:27.159-05:002010-12-22T18:54:27.159-05:00There are only two people in the world I wouldn...There are only two people in the world I wouldn't mind having an autograph of, and one of them is a calligrapher. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Zapf" rel="nofollow">Herman Zapf</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth" rel="nofollow">Donald E. Knuth</a>), the rest I'm not interested in holding on to. (and Herman Zapf's signature probably is pretty).cytengahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18036495792528055597noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-36938927272369777482010-12-22T16:26:59.066-05:002010-12-22T16:26:59.066-05:00Brock - When I was nineteen, I went out to the San...Brock - When I was nineteen, I went out to the San Juan islands with some friends. It was a brisk but brilliantly sunny day in March and we were on a cliff over the sea, a hundred feet over the frothy, rocky beach. There were bald eagle nests in the pines over us, and as we looked up in the clear sky, an eagle soared directly overhead. My friend Stefan threw his arms wide open and he was silhouetted against the sky, against the eagle whose pose he mirrored, a look of joyous rapture on his face as if he were flying himself.<br /><br />I took a picture. It looks like a dude sticking his arms out. You can even kinda make out a bird in the background.<br /><br />The moment is not ruined--it could not be--but it sure isn't helped either by that photo, and I wish I hadn't wasted one instant of it looking through a viewfinder.Cliff Pervocracyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02080142422250604406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2770580070906411828.post-52978697352766352252010-12-22T16:08:43.623-05:002010-12-22T16:08:43.623-05:00Amen.
When I was seventeen, I went to Florida wit...Amen.<br /><br />When I was seventeen, I went to Florida with two of my closest friends. It was the first time any of us had been that far away with no adult supervision anywhere in sight. There are pictures (somewhere) of some of the stuff we did. The morning we left, we walked down the beach for what felt like forever and the sunrise was just burning and golden and RIGHT THERE, and the waves looked like sparkling glass.<br /><br />No camera (or any of these words) can capture that; if you weren't there, well, then you weren't there. What matters is the memory and that sometimes when I hit a rough patch in my life, I can feel like we're still walking on that beach and whatever's going on is just an illusion. That's about as close to magical as I've got.Brock F'in Samsonhttp://brock-fn-samson.livejournal.com/noreply@blogger.com