Greenstorm's Journal

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 19:06:19 GMT

Oh look, someone's been observing my relationships

https://aspergersfromtheinside.com/2017/02/10/being-too-direct/

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Space and Time

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 21:50:17 GMT

( Processing scheduling, time commitments, and mental load in my relationships )

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Relating since 1994

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 16:25:11 GMT

My side of a conversation I had about relationships, when asked what I meant by relationship anarchy. I think it's readable without the other person's side, which I've just praphrased in brackets. I think 2022 is my year of "taking no bullshit, giving no fucks" with potential relationship connections of interest. This is also an excellent example of how I'm feeling "more autistic" lately, that is, I'm not afraid to admit that I analyze human behaviours and I'm likewise not afraid to talk about what I see and what I need and how I think. Here goes:

Hm, you're looking for the practical rather than the philosophical? It generally means I talk a lot about what to expect from any given relationship, and I strongly resist assumptions that committing to do A also implicitly involves committing to do B. Further it means some of my relationships are very, very far from any of the typical obligation/interaction bundles that go into the standard relationship categories of spouse, primary, secondary, friends with benefits, friends, or whatnot. I work very hard to figure out which parts of a connection are a good fit and which parts are a bad fit, and to customize each relationship to only include what works for both people. It also in practice means I have a lot of cometary and long-distance folks right now who I consider very important and will prioritize time and energy for, but whose role in my other relationships is a popcorn gallery and advice panel; they don't have power to shape them.

(something on use of labels and how they sadly don't communicate everything that's needed)

Oh, I love labels! But it's important for the folks involved to know what is involved, and not assume based on the label -- "friends" or "partners" always do x or y, or never do x or y, it's really an ongoing process to daylight those assumptions and make sure they're grounded in consent. And as you say once relationships start to be really customized, outside folks just are not going to hear what's going on from those labels. Intimacy is by its nature so personal to the folks involved that as it deepens it becomes opaque to everyone else, I think.

My neurotype and calling won't allow for traditional relationships so I've ended up breaking it all the way down, and have been since I was 14 so I've had a lot of practice assuming I can do things and then failing. It's not a way I like relating to people I love, failing like that. It's so much work to do things this way! But it's also very rewarding.

I will quite often use shorthand to evoke more accurate understanding in folks, especially folks I'm not going to entangle with romantically or physically. This kind of discussion we're having here, about the details of relationship, is in itself a kind of relationship I don't want to have with every person, even people who might need to know something about my relationship status. Sometimes, then, I'll use "primary" (though most often these days 'my farm is my primary') to evoke "I prioritize my relationship with this person(/thing) over my relationship with you and don't feel like disclosing more about my decision-making process".

(something about toxicity of unicorn hunting and hierarchy)

TBH I'm pretty happy to destigmatize all that kind of language. Poly these days feels kind of dogmatic, which seems to force people to describe or avoid describing in certain ways, which leads to incompatible folks not speaking openly about their incompatibilities. I'd rather people do what works for them, have it all open and above-board, and allow folks to select in or out.

(something about all relationships having value)

Drawing one's value (or the relationship's value) from a relationship structure, that's haunted our society for so long, hasn't it?

I think the value of the relationship, one's commitment to it, and the structure of the relationship can all be decoupled (and in my personal case, should be) regardless of what that structure is.

Well, stigmatizing language also won't get you what you want, because if there's a desire/feeling of connection with someone and you're both wanting to explore the connection, that's the time when folks round themselves up or down to fit what they think the other person wants. So if you call hierarchy toxic they're unlikely to say "yeah, my spouse and I are going to prioritize keeping our relationship with each other intact if there's a serious issue, rather than me prioritizing this new relationship with you, and we agree together to this hierarchy". So then you won't know.

And it won't get them someone who maybe is looking for something without a level of long-term commitment, or who has a robust safety net and doesn't need certainty and can roll with that other nexus of power being present.

Ha, you have entered the infodumping zone.

(something on prescriptive vs descriptive hierarchy)

Ha, well, and here's one further for you to think about: depending on what you mean by prescriptive, does that mean it's ok to have a hierarchy as long as you haven't explicitly talked about it and agreed to it? Because I'd prefer to relate with someone who had sat down with their wife (for example) and agreed that they would prioritize certain things, which they could then explicitly list to me, rather than waiting until after events went down and saying, "well, looks like you prioritized those things"

When I'm scouting someone out for something with big emotions or big time commitments or whatever, I (ok, this is genuinely funny) tend to ask about how they've handled past tough things, because I find creativity and values show up big in those examples. Because most folks don't have a ton of lists.

So to clarify, prescriptive meaning trying to predict into the deep future?

These days I'm wrestling with intention and the unexpected in the future of relationships, so I'm right there with you on what prescription actually means in a relationship. We like to think we know ourselves, our partners, and the world, but life is fundamentally unknowable and partnerships with room for that are what survive.

("Can I reflect on my entire thinking and get back to you?")

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Illusionary walls

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 18:09:03 GMT

Monogamy is obsessed with sex; it elevates sex above other forms of human connection. It reads a sexual connection like tea leaves, expecting that type of interaction to predict and fulfill the whole of relating to someone. Sex can be emotional, connecting, or transcendent sure, but that's a lot of power to give one type of interaction. There are so many ways of relating that can also be emotional, connecting, or transcendent. It's weird to me to have compatibility in one stand in for compatibility in the others; likewise it's weird to rule huge swaths of connection out because they're notionally connected to one type.

Plus the rules always seem to arbitrary to me. Monogamous people themselves generally don't know them; if you ask two people in a monogamous couple where their lines are, what counts as allowable outside intimacy vs what doesn't, they will rarely agree even within the couple. What's more, they'll often universalize their expectations and assume all other monogamous folks share their own particular set of restrictions around physical/emotional/energetic contact.

For these reasons I struggle to interact with mono folks on a meaningful level. Keep it distant, keep it polite, because they can't be trusted to state their own boundaries up front and I can't know what they are from my outside perspective. Even something like texting daily, sharing a favourite song, hugging, hanging out late at night-- I can never tell what's not going to be ok, and I hate that. There are some folks I can trust to state and hold their boundaries but most of those people have been poly at some point.

That said, I had a lovely evening at J's last night. I still feel relatively comfortable inhabiting my body around him, which is something I'd worried about losing. I also like cooking for folks I care about, and who are appreciative.

On the other hand this is another connection that's going to inhabit the ok-right-now, likely-disappearing-soon space that my connection with Tucker does, I think? And that's destabilizing.

And this morning I'm super stressed about work; the way that's going down between management, and trying to figure out if I should pull the union in, around support for my autism/health stuff, is probably stressful enough that it entirely counteracts the shorter work-weeks I'm supposed to be doing to reduce stress and increase my capacity to work through this stuff. The command-and-control way work is approaching the situation is also super triggering my PDA, which in turn is making everything else in my life more difficult.

Ugh.

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Mon, 06 Jun 2022 22:19:38 GMT

I'm tired and my heart hurts. I need to spend time with some poly folks; the last week has convinced me that I probably love in colours that the eyes of folks around here can't even perceive. I feel invisible and my moral sense is a little offended. I guess maybe this is the first time I've watched default-monogamous (rather than deliberate-monogamous) folks sort their stuff out. I hadn't realized just how far I stood from that space.

I've been told that I'm very intentional about my relationships and I guess I am. I find the gift of connection to incur a responsibility to do some groundwork, to figure out which compatibilities exist, and then to build some sustainability into that system. To my mind it's at best cruel or a waste not to be a little mindful about it, to work to avoid anything easily avoidable.

I don't know. I was going to go on, something something Judeo-Christian denial of pleasure is supposed to be the sign of true love something property something ownership something control over other people's bodies something something but I don't have it in me. Maybe I need to call Tillie or Angus or someone from way back so I can just cry a little and year them say "yeah" and not have to explain anything.

In the meantime it's hot and sunny and I'm doing my garden and that's not so bad, is it? Corn and squash and beans and tomatoes and soup peas and potatoes and some extremely experimental melons all going in within the next couple days. The tiller is great. I love playing in the dirt and I'll love watching these experiments grow.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2022 15:51:41 GMT

To read later, seems like the kids have been doing some work in the last decade. Thank goodness. https://thethinkingasexual.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/relationship-anarchy-basics/

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Web vs Atom

Tue, 31 May 2022 20:10:01 GMT

In the end I think the trouble with my entry point to Fort is the way monogamy sets up atomized social structures while nonmonogamy/queer culture leans heavily on an interconnected web of folks who have each other's backs. I mean, we might not even like each other, but we have each other's backs.

My understanding is the web of chosen family and mutual support comes out of not having traditional support structures, out of being kicked out of families and off jobs and needing to band together not to be attacked or killed. I don't think of myself as queer really, but I have that same webbed structure of support and I'm used to it.

Instead Fort has a typical monogamous structure, your married units and their blood family are the support. Folks outside those units might be nice but they're not there to have your back. It's probably especially entrenched here because there are so many big old families who take care of their own, and then transient people who just leave instead of establishing networks.

I do think it falls apart a bit in practice in Fort. I mean, a lot of those married units probably do not really have each other's backs. That's enough worse -- limiting your support pool even if it's not functioning -- that I'm not going to think about it more right now.

But here's the thing. I want someone to have my back here. Tucker did that for me while he was here, and now he is gone and I just... there's nowhere I can show up and be fed and just sit and be cared for if something bad is going down. I move my furniture on my own. I always, always have to figure it out.

I don't know. Hard times.

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Hahahahahahaha

Tue, 31 May 2022 04:30:31 GMT

This is kinda embarassing. You are going to laugh so much at this, especially the poly folks.

Or actually, maybe it's too much tonight. Call it small-town monogamous drama that involves everyone in town I have any interest in and takes the new person off the table and leaves it at that. Disappointing, extremely silly (from my POV), involves a bunch of suffering, is probably not surprising, and will take time to resolve itself.

Plus A&E are wanting to get back in touch.

Seriously, why do I do anything except garden? It all ends in tears.

On the other hand I feel so confident now in my actions. I'll do the right thing, and I do, and it comes from a place of care and connection and not these relics or torture devices society saddles us with. I'm free to offer myself clearly and set boundaries, freer than I've ever been. This situation fucking sucks but it hasn't shaken me, really.

I am sad, disappointed, and looking forward to doing a heavy lift for awhile. I mean, at least I'm here, to be here for folks if they need? But when do I get folks to be there for me?

Also, as Nicholas said, "My vague feeling is like hell you need this shit, and I'm trying to formulate the sentence "can't a person just get laid without drama" around your particular choice of pronouns and identities without much success so let's just leave it at that? Ugh."

Gah.

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Secret world

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 18:13:47 GMT

Today the plan was to dig into how PDA, particularly, intersects with my burnout. I'm going to set that down though and just observe:

Last night Tucker spontaneously talked some about how his other relationships are going and it was really nice. He normally keeps this stuff really close to his chest so opening up like this was a chance for me to see and talk to, well, someone who's now spent a bunch of time doing poly stuff and is clear-sighted and able to think, talk, and draw conclusions about these dynamics. I don't get to talk to too many folks like that; for most people the closest they get is closing down their dyadic (or occasionally triadic) relationship after things are hard a couple times. Having conversations with folks who can see common patterns and talk about how things went down, what strategies to use next, which parts you just gotta swallow-- it feels like home. And I just like how he thinks about things, his sensibilities, his feel for the world, his not-quite-sense-of-humour but sense of fitness or irony or-- is there a word for that?

Whether he's comfortable talking to me more because he'll be gone soon and the stakes are lower or because he's been etching away at counseling and self-work I'll never know, but I'll take it.

Today someone said "I've started asking myself when I'm in a bad situation, what would an autistic person do? and it's really helped". In this case, what would I do? Well, I'd take the pieces of him he's willing to give me and go elsewhere for the needs he doesn't want to be part of filling. Conveniently, I have some folks auditioning for some of those needs, for day-to-day food & farm support -- A&E -- right now. And Josh is excited to have me living closer, and we're both excited for me to maybe live where we can go out boating together since ocean is such a huge part of his connection with the world. And that leaves room for me to open to what Tucker is willing to give without grasping, for my emotions to settle to the correct distance without trying to force it into an ill-fitting companionship.

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Not Even An Announcement

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 19:21:37 GMT

It's time to make this a little more formal.

All my life I've wanted someone to see me, to not necessarily walk beside me every step but to know my story. That's where I kept my eyes when everyone got married, maybe had kids, got divorced, did careers. There's no one left in my life who's been there from the start and will be there until the end except one.

I'd have wished for someone who remembers it all and can put it in context; instead what I got is someone who's supported me every step, who believes in the spirit inside me wholeheartedly, who thinks it's important that I follow my calling and my meaning.

I don't have someone who loves me unconditionally, all the time, and is always able to open her heart to empathize with my pain. I do have someone who's learning to do so, and who sometimes stumbles upon it as the right thing to do, and other times who's able to invite me into that space of love and healing.

There is no one person who will complete me, who I can disappear into for years and never come out, though I've wished there is. Still, I have someone at my back, who speaks for me in community and whose well of interest never runs dry. When things are rough she'll entice me into what I love and I find comfort that way; when my interest leaps away into some new thing she lets me follow my joy and takes care of me as best she can when she's able.

Time and again she's pushed her limits to be there for me; not always, but often, and when everyone else fails she's the one who always comes through.

She can't be everything for me. Our physical intimacy comes and goes, sometimes it's fraught, and it's never as robust and immediate as it is with other people. She doesn't have as much capacity as I'd like, and time and again I've come up against her limits. She forgets to be compassionate in the midst of fixing things and soothing things. Her emotions overwhelm her and sometimes she forgets what to do or how to do it. She's not given to constancy and promises come and go and come again, though she's better at knowing her limits around that now.

Still, here we are, so many years later. She's been writing to me for well over twenty years now, for my entire adult life. She's been supporting me and in these times where everyone else is receding she's the one I trust not to go anywhere. Neither of us minds the ride of NRE, the bit of a break, and we've ridden out my various relationships shockingly well.

So it seems reasonable to acknowledge this now, to cement it with a symbol. I'm working with a designer on the ring; I'm not sure if I can afford the gold or if I'll have to hope the silver will survive maybe 40 years of wear. There will need to be a ceremony at some point, I've been chewing on that for a couple years but I'm not sure how it'll look. There may be a small private ceremony in the meantime. I don't know that there'll be a single set of vows; perhaps a small book to recall me to the heart of meaning here.

It's too bad monoheteronormativity is such a thing; I think when most people do this they get gifts as well as a dual income or childcare out of it. I won't be getting that. It's still important to do, and to do in the sight of community, though I'm nervous about that.

I don't expect this to change things but I do believe it will help me remember.

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Unsettled/Unpredicted

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 16:01:40 GMT

I slept under a weighted blanket for the first time last night. It's made like a quilt, with two layers of fabric sewn into squares and glass beads in the squares. That's a pretty common way of making a weighted blanket, and it had the issue that I expected: that is a lot of thermal mass, and so it took a long time to heat up to body temperature and then once it heated up it stayed hot. It's probably still super warm now, three hours after I got out of bed.

I'd got the blanket used, in town, pretty cheap. I'd been thinking about getting a weighted blanket for awhile-- I usually need several comforters or blankets on me to sleep and figured it might replace several of them-- but it's a lot of money to put out. I was glad to find this one and be able to either use it as a trial or keep it.

I'd forgotten just how *scented* other people's homes and laundries are. Whatever they've done to this it fills the room and then some with this... fragrance. It doesn't seem to trigger my fragrance-sensitive headaches, and I don't use the blanket against my skin so it doesn't have a chance to give me hives. What it does do, though, is poke my senses over and over like a curious 3-year-old and make my house feel foreign. Last night felt like sleeping on someone's couch just because it didn't smell like my home at all.

The blanket is 25 lbs so it's not really washable in a machine. It's even actively a little hard to handle. I might try to give it an enzyme or bleach soak but I'm not sure what drying it would look like. It is definitely too heavy for a laundry line and would probably tip chairs over if I tried to drape it. You know the way a dead body is hard to carry, because it flops all over, it's literally a dead weight? The blanket is worse.

It was nice to sleep under, though, once it warmed up. My sleeping positions tend to stretch out the muscles I've used during the day and having the weight also was a nice tension on my muscles. Plus I imagine if I keep using it my forearms will strengthen up quick.

It was good to have something to think about. I had a talk with Josh where he's prioritized some stuff with his other partner that will change the kinds of sex I can have with him, told after the fact. That's kind of piled on top of something relatively similar with Tucker that happened previously and I'm feeling-- I don't know. Not pleased. Angry? Bereft? The volume is turned down a little on those feelings but they're not great.

And then today I'm trying to get Nox and Oak into the woodshed. I've done the things right, three hours to set up the yard into a series of funnels using the trailers and lots of panels. All I need to do now is go out with a bucket and treats, let them out of the garden into the yard, and gently steer as they wander around. I've given myself all day. I will need to be slow, not be anxious (which of course I am) and just have patience and live in their mindset with them until they're moved.

It's a significant emotional challenge, honestly.

Anyhow, that's my morning. We'll see what the afternoon brings.

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Hearth

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 03:52:25 GMT

Talked with Tucker most of the weekend about relationship stuff. Seems like his trip broke a depression, or something. The talks are ongoing but have been really good. I feel like I'm talking with a person again in so many ways.

I took a break from talking with Tucker to talk with Kelsey and that was really lovely. The real North is rough and she's in a profession supposed to help the most disadvantaged people up there so she's having a rough time, as is everyone around her I think. On the other hand she's just really good to talk to. I briefly explained the Tucker situation to her and she asked "what's the best case scenario" which is what I needed to be asked.

I had today off work too, an extra long weekend for me, so I was able to spend the day doing farm stuff and re-centering from the weekend's talks. I combed through my tomato trial and picked and labelled ripe fruits (and trimmed back some extra growth, I'm probably still missing some fruits though), picked the gaspe corn (ripe enough to dry indoors where it won't get eaten), picked a bunch of pickling cukes, and finally finished butchering the last few primals from the kill two weeks ago since they finally thawed enough to work on today.

Right now both crockpots are rendering down soap lard, my soap pan is full of lard waiting to be turned into more soap, the pressure cooker is cooling down with dog food in it, the stockpot is simmering some tonkotsu broth, the canner is cooling down full of carnitas, my freezer is chilling down thickish pork belly slices to be eaten with ssamjang, and there's thin-sliced meat waiting for jerky marinade in the fridge. Oregano is currently in the dehydrator. My chimney is supposed to be replaced next weekend and today, at least, I'm not feeling the lack of heat.

My house feels alive.

I've moved back up out of the basement to the loft room. I get more light in the mornings up there for the next little while, before there's no more morning light. It's warmer up there and the bed is better, though it's much louder. I can't ignore the dogs barking much at all.

Two mornings ago Thea was barking seriously for a long time so I stuck my head out, didn't see anything, went downstairs and put on my boots, stepped out the door, and saw the fattest black bear you can imagine down by the chicken coop. I popped back inside and got the gun and went back outside; Avallu had stirred himself because I was out, and he and Thea chased the bear back over the fence. So there I am standing in giant insulated gumboots and underwear, holding a gun, clomping around in the back of the house to make sure everything was ok. Pretty funny, honestly. I didn't see the bear again this morning and it doesn't seem to have hurt anything or got into any feed, which is good. That was a very, very fat bear and he would not have fit in my freezer, nor would I have had the energy to process him properly.

Tucker and I watched the Brothers Bloom and I thought about mononormativity being strong enough that it needs to get rid of even siblings, not just other romantic relationships. I thought about how personal development happens outside longstanding relationships, you can't maintain a longstanding relationship in those stories and still do personal growth. I thought about how when someone needs to do personal growth they find a girl who has the qualities they need and then date her until the qualities rub off. Then the narrative discards the girl, she probably didn't have interiority or an arc of her own anyhow.

I thought about someone knowing me enough to know what I want.

I'm turning over and over what I want from a relationship, what I need from it, what isn't good for me and what is. I'm turning over and over what I need to trust and what I don't, and what it looks like to trust Tucker to be himself and where that self fits best in position to me.

I will say that I've been doing distance relationships for a long time, since Jan in Germany in my early twenties, and nearly two decades later I may be better at them but I have plenty of them. Distance is for talky relationships.

I feel the need to come at what I need from a values perspective. What does that look like?

( Rough stab at relationship values )

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Scripts

Sun, 29 Aug 2021 23:16:28 GMT

Offered as advice to me today on the internet, my particulars in brackets to replace the given phrasing: "I’m not going to abandon you, but I cannot be both your caregiver (your relationship counselor) and your romantic partner. If you aren’t going to work on your mental health (relationship skills/relationship with me) and just need me as a support, I can do that but I won’t be able to do that and maintain the romantic aspects of our relationship"

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The Daily Breakup

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 04:43:30 GMT

Ok. Self-reflection. Map my thoughts.

( navel gazing, as per the deck's instructions )

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Relationships and plants

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 15:41:54 GMT

Today I can hopefully take the tiller in to get it looked at. Josh says it's probably the carburetor.

In the meantime my plan is to plant spinach and grain, and maybe pick up a bale of straw for the pigs tonight.

Planting continues: I got the rest of the melon seeds into pots yesterday, and hopefully by the end of today I'll have the squash done.

Josh is doing the expected trajectory with the new relationship. We usually talk once a week and he's like, "no change" but then it turns out in the ensuing conversation that they're gone from one weekend a month to seeing each other a couple times a week, or the "maybe we'll see how this goes" has changed into "this is definitely a permanent relationship" or whatever. You know, the exponential growth that is NRE.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of talking about it, I'm tired of thinking about it.

In actual fact I'm pretty tired of dealing with relationship stuff at all right now. I want to be outside fixing fences and putting things in the ground.

It occurred to me that the folks I relationship with tend to go on trips for a couple weeks a couple times a year where they're largely-to-completely unavailable for contact. I don't tend to travel, but there's... actually no reason I can't deliberately block time off away from contact even if I'm not travelling. I mean, I tend to fade out a bunch at this time of year anyhow but I can be more deliberate about it if I want.

Once the boundaries door is wedged open it seems to just keep creeping further and further open. I hadn't realized how many things I was doing to make the people around me comfortable, or how many things I was not saying and not doing. I can hold up my poly lens and say, I tended to be punished for doing relationships in an atypical way so I tried to be as typical as I could be, allowing what I absolutely could not avoid and shoving down my discomfort about anything where I could pretend to the standard narrative. Interestingly, I can hold up the autism lens and say the exact same thing.

My highschool friend -- the one who was close friends with me for years and years and then never responded to a single word after he got into a longterm relationship, such that I only learned he was 1) in a relationship 2) married and 3) had kids from mutual friends -- said that I only ever talked about relationships and plants, but that I made it interesting.

This week, or this month, I guess I want a break from talking about relationships.

Maybe living somewhere with non-gardening winter really is bad for me. I'd really missed immersing myself in my garden.

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Counseling win #582856284636598686472718

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:31:48 GMT

Talking about The Problematic Double Metamour Issue with my counselor, and she said: how will you feel in this situation you're anticipating? And I said: angry, resentful, violated.

Later she said: you could talk to your partners about this beforehand, you don't have to wait till it comes up. That might help you feel more supported when the event happens.

Actually pretty funny, that I'd need to be told to tell my partners how I feel. But, I did need to hear it. Because I've been told so many times that if I have any issues relating to a partner having other partners, if I have any negative feelings or thoughts about that, if I share them I don't deserve to be told about those metamours or about the happier moments in those relationships or anything like that. That I deserve to be in a dadt relationship rather than an openly poly one.

So, when I feel this way I don't access support from my partners, I don't feel seen, but I still try to provide support to my partners. Thus, resentful. Taken advantage of. Unseen plus hurt plus giving, that's a feeling of violation.

My anger tries to push my boundaries back to a safe or comfortable place.

In this case anger can just be used as the energy to tell my partner how I'm feeling, and to ask for what I need: to reach out for that connection past the legacy of being told it's not ok to share this part of myself.

If the partner rejects this part of myself, I can deal with that situation when it comes to it. I don't need to hide myself in order to be an easier poly 101 experience. I can practice focusing on communicating my own feelings and frame them as such, and if that's read as an attack/feeds into someone's poly guilt I'm with people I trust to work through that with me.

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Poly Angst

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 15:37:51 GMT

I've been struggling with something the last little while. I'm going to bring it up with my counselor - it's lovely having a counselor with poly experience - but I'm trying to sort through where the emotional core of the problem is.

When folks are new to having multiple partners, they usually:

Are super dishonest with themselves over whether something is likely to become a relationship, because we're not taught to evaluate that realistically and we're punished for making those evaluations. So, "I like this person and I don't know if they like me, but if they did I'd be open to a relationship" or "I like this person but there's this one barrier and if that was removed I'd be open to a relationship" becomes "nothing would ever happen with that person, I'd never have a relationship with them". It makes it impossible to discuss things in advance.

Are bad at communicating what's going on. Combination of poly guilt (not feeling like they *can* tell a partner about another partner or relationship because it feels gross and bad) and not knowing what's going on (believing NRE is Magic Destiny rather than a pretty predictable response, not being mindful in discussing and creating relationship structures because relationships Just Happen and you take what you can get because of legacy thinking around One True Lifetime Soulmate and just lack of knowledge of this kind of negotiation).

Commit to things they can't follow through. This runs a whole gamut from barriers or behaviours in sex (things just escalated and I didn't think to bring out a condom/I didn't feel like it was the right time to have a discussion about risk) to time management (I'll still make time for you every week) to future relationship stuff (let's move in together) to -- well, everything. And I get it, new relationships are exciting and anxiety-producing and it's way easier if you can make everyone happy by promising everyone what they want. And it's hard to sit and think about what's reasonable to commit to especially during NRE.

And I'm honestly fucking tired of it. I don't know what to do with it. I just want to sit the first several months out of folks' lives when they start a new thing at this point. They can come back and tell me what's going n when they've figured it out, right?

Because it's corrosive to have someone not follow the letter or spirit of their words.

It's disheartening to have someone misrepresent themselves over and over.

And it's poisonous to believe I know someone better than they do themselves, and even worse to have it vindicated.

It's really important to me that my partners are regarded as sovereign over themselves, as experts in their own experience. It's important that I can accept the truths about themselves that they give me. It's too easy to gaslight otherwise. That's not a dynamic I want to give room to.

At the same time, my own experience needs room here too. There needs to be room for the feelings I have when the last six, or eight, or dozen relationships I've been in where someone has taken a new partner and told me the exact. Same. Thing. and then didn't do it. I don't want to bury that experience, to just hide that feeling for a couple years until they've been through it enough to see their own patterns.

Most of the folks I've dated have been the ones pushing for poly within their relationships. That means they've been first out the gate, they have more experience being the "more poly" person in the relationship and less experience watching a partner go through this stuff. I more or less don't date folks who haven't at least been poly for a couple years, but a couple years doesn't mean having been through many partners and getting lots of self-knowledge about that process, I guess. One or two times through the rodeo and people are still telling themselves "what happened was an aberration, with enough willpower I'll just do what I say next time" instead of adapting what they say they do to fit what they can actually do.

And yeah, maybe the answer is just to only date Elder Poly folks. There are so few of those around, though. Maybe the answer is some sort of detailed questionnaire, but then we're back to folks being idealistic about their capabilities.

I don't know. This sucks. I don't have the emotional bandwidth for picking through this right now. I'm resentful and angry and aggrieved over what seems to be a very common set of human behaviours and that's not a great place to be in. Human behaviours don't change just because I think they "shouldn't be" a certain way. I need a way to be at peace with them, and to take my place within a world full of humans and their common behaviours.

I need... principles to work from? I need a direction to steer in. I need strategies that work for other folks to hold up against myself and see if they fit or if they can be altered to fit.

This trainwreck brought to you by yes-its-almost-blood-time-but-25%-of-my-life-is-pre-blood-time-so-I-still-need-workable-strategies.

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Tue, 23 Mar 2021 00:41:50 GMT

Spring is still springing. I'm vibrating too hard to sleep, though when Tucker is here it helps. A shocking amount of water is running down the gentle south slope of the pigfield under the packed snow -- snow which is invisible under the winter's manure, but which hasn't entirely disappeared. The rivulets are the size of my wrist, nearly streams in their own right during the height of the afternoon.

My blue muscovy is sneaking off at night, undoubtedly to sit on a nest. I can't find it. The americaunas are coming in to lay and my eggbasket is a mix of the lovely pinkish buff tinted chantecler eggs and a gentle palette of blues and blue-greens and aquas. Downstairs there are goose and duck eggs on every available surface, waiting for me to make pasta dough and refill the freezer.

I try not to spend energy going against my nature. Fighting myself never works. Instead I channel who I am into behaviours aligned with my values and see where I end up. It works for me but it requires me to pay close attention, both to many levels of myself and to what the opportunities in front of me really mean. I have many paths laid out in front of me right now.

Sarah Manguso wrote "Around you move many seas. It is impossible not to drown a little." I accept that I will drown a little.

Right now I'm canning marmalade. Our little grocery store is surprisingly lovely. The manager makes a point of bringing in things I'm used to from Vancouver but that are probably (?) exotic up here: starfruit, bitter melon, tapioca starch, okra, and, in season, seville oranges. I bought proper oranges, ugly and pithy and seedy, and sliced them up while watching The Flash with Tucker. It's a bit of a process: juicing them, taking out the pith and seeds, cooking the pith and seeds in water, slicing and simmering the peel, adding in the juice and the water strained from the seeds, adding in more sugar than really seems proper, ladling into sterilized jars (I need a one-cup ladle), then water-bathing.

There was a moment when I was leaning over the candy thermometer when I realized I've made so much jam in my life. I did big batches for Urban Digs farm, that was the same year I did my project to can one jar for every day of the upcoming winter at home. Every year since then I've canned jam or preserves. Even before that I remember canning peaches or nectarines with Ellen. Honestly I still have one jar of nectarines from that day, it sealed itself shut with sugar and no one has been able to open it since. That must have been ten years ago or more?

Sometimes when I go through the same action at the same time of year I can remember myself doing something similar previously. Today I could feel... it was a connection, not just to one moment, but to a series of similar moments over the years. I connected to a continuity of self I've rarely experienced.

I've been thinking back over the past a lot in the last few weeks. I was... I want to say almost driven by dreams and portents to reach out to Graydon more meaningfully again. We've known each other something like twelve years and been casually close for the recent many. The connection is lovely; he's always been ridiculously appealing to me on many levels. My memory is a black hole though, so I've been sifting through his memories about what happened, through my emails, and through my old journal entries. It seems we've done this twice before.

There are two sayings.

One is, "the third time's a charm"

The second is, "once is chance, second time's coincidence, third time is [enemy action/a pattern]".

We will see.

In any case both contemplating a new relationship and looking back at myself in those days, I'm grateful for so many of the people who have been in my life. I'm well-anchored right now in part because of the integrity and shared values of my current partners. I've been well-supported by friends, among others Adrian and Ellen who may eventually form a little intentional community with me were awfully present back in those days too. And most of all I have myself, and can trust myself to a level that seems uncommon for many folks.

I'm tired. My marmalade is done in the water bath. I'll take it out and either snuggle up with a book or write about interiority, the gaze of the oppressor, and autism. Maybe I'll be sucked fully into the past instead of peering at it through a window. I guess we'll see which shortly.

Manguso's poem finishes:

"Arvol Looking Horse, a Sioux leader, called Devils Tower the heart of everything that is. Very large objects remind us of the possibility of the infinite, which has no size at all. But we understand it as something very, very large.

What the lover seeks is the possibility of return, the strange heart beating under every stone."

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Some notes

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 17:20:52 GMT

Yesterday was my first true day off in awhile, waking until sleeping with no required interactions with people all day. I followed the geese around for three and a half hours, talking to them quietly. I worked on goose breeding pens. I listened to podcasts and a youtube thingy. I made cornbread. It gave me space to enjoy myself, and also to think. In no particular order:

I don't think I'll ever be able to dive fully, headfirst, into a relationship again because I'm too afraid of hurting people: hurting folks in other current relationships when they compare that new energy to ongoing energy, and hurting the person I'd otherwise be diving into when they realize that level of intensity won't continue until the moment they die. At this point I don't think it's possible for someone to absorb that information from my words ("hey, I'm cyclic, there will be times of high contact and low contact" has worked on zero people to date). I'm not super happy with this, and I can tell from the resentment I feel when I consider a partner diving in with a metamour and not taking a more measured approach (granted, my more measured approach can still be pretty intense). It's something to think about.

PDA originated as a subcategory-ish of autism (a "profile"). So, following PDA up into discussions on autism I get into masking. Masking seems to be a thing autistic folks do where they automatically hide aspects of themselves that they perceive as not-normal. I... really don't think I do this. However, one dude was talking about how he has this middle ground between hiding himself completely and just doing whatever, and it involves offering mini-explanations ("I can concentrate better if I get up and walk around"/"I listen better if I'm not looking at your face"/"twirling this pen helps me relax"). This lets the people around him accept what he's doing and get on with the business at hand. I definitely do this. I don't consider the desire for these behaviours to be outside the range of people's experience, I trust that they'll understand my explanation or not care about it either way, and so I drop a quick line so folks aren't confused and go about my business.

Stimming is another thing that sits within the autistic experience that I don't see in myself. Still learning more about this one.

That one dude said, basically, that if you answer yes to these three questions it's worth pursuing whether you might be autistic: 1) You feel different enough that you think you're probably on the wrong planet 2) Folks don't believe when you express something you know to be true about yourself, and minimize it, and 3) What he calls social confusion ("not a lack of social skills, but an over-intellectualizing of something most folks just do normally" and "it's like the experience of watching ducks in a pond, you can be interested but you don't want to join them and if you try it can be very confusing")

1) Yes 2) I don't know? I don't trust most folks' competence at knowing me enough to give many of those opinions any weight so I don't pay a lot of attention these days, and I don't remember the past very well 3) The ducks metaphor is a really interesting one for me because I literally follow my ducks around talking to them and I enjoy it, but I don't feel that I'm one of them, and that's maybe not so far off with how I feel about humans too?

Looks like most people my age figure it out when their kids are diagnosed and they're like "but that's normal, they're just like me!"

Anyhow, some of this is definitely resonant, some of it is definitely not, but it's definitely good to be looking into.

If I could keep more geese, would I be willing to give up the pigs? What if I gave up breeding pigs but just got them as weaners to raise to slaughter? These piglets are driving me to distraction with the constantly getting out. Between them and the lynx it's a lot.

My younger self would consider this life to be completely satisfactory knowing that I planted 55 varieties of tomatoes for the trial this year. I do believe I agree.

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Breathe and flow

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 02:21:41 GMT

We've had a thaw here: huge full moon over halloween and up to 11C or so, brely dropping overnight. The snow is gone, the water atop slush is gone. Mars (?) has been bright in the sky lately whenever I look.

The BC election has come and gone. The NDP, a labour/traditionally left but becoming centre as society catches up party, got I think their first ever back-to-back governments, and turned a minority government into majority. The greens kept their 3 seats. It's cautiously hopeful.

And tomorrow is election night in the US. For future reference, this is for Trump's second term. Things feel like a powder keg: there will be a very slow return of all the votes because many people mailed or voted early with covid, neither side -- because there's nothing in the US right now that doesn't feel like it has only two diametrically opposed sides -- trust that it will be a fair election. So for those to whom the country isn't already an irrelevant sideshow there is tension, and a waiting breath.

Tomorrow Tucker and I will spend the evening together, doing little projects and trying to keep distracted. Benefit of living in Pacific time is that if there's something to be known by end of day we'll know it before sleep.

Things I can do:

Tidy the plant shelf and start microgreens for winter, I miss eating green things.
Jar up the sauerkraut and the jalapeno carrot pickles and either find room in the fridge and/or pasteurize some of them.
Make another big batch of italian sausage, and maybe a batch of bangers, and freeze or can. I pretty much take all my sausage out of casings anyhow, so I might as well not bother to put them in.
Brush a dog or two.
Make a super old-school boiled pudding with lard instead of suet, is this doable?
Bottle booze.
Sex.
Yoga.

Meanwhile the antidepressants are working well, bringing me definite hope that I have the capability to be happy. The last two days weren't the best but I am going into the worst part of my cycle. The side-effects so far are pretty tolerable: very occasional ringing in my ears that is banished by a change in background sound, a little bit of digestive upset, sleep is a little more fragile than it was but still possible to get with a little more care. And the benefits, well. I brushed the dogs today and we cuddled. Just... something I do because we both enjoy it, not because it's a chore. That's good.

I also spent a bunch of the day reading through the whole Franklin Veaux relationship harm thing. It came up, and last time I paid attention there wasn't such a well-curated site about it. I appreciate reading a range of perspectives on how folks are impacted by various behaviours, and using that to consider my own behaviour and my own boundaries. I feel so so far removed from any poly groups or poly community now, and to be honest I met some neat people in those communities but I don't think I could stomach them now. Poly itself has diversified so much from those days, too; I think there's a set of relationship standards and skills that I share with a bunch of folks who may or not be under the poly umbrella. So it brings back echoes that I'm well away from, but also gives me a bit of a playground to see folks' relationship stuff. And I do like seeing folks' relationship stuff.

A couple more days before we freeze again. It'll be a rough freeze: everything is wet and muddy right no and I think we're supposed to have a sharp drop to -14. Better get everyone tucked away in good deep straw.

I am so curious about what tomorrow brings. Fingers crossed.

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My real skin; my real heart

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 22:45:34 GMT

You come over.

There are piglets, or baby birds, or butchery to be done: life and death.

I can take a break, put on a smile, go inside the house and chat. That's a visit.

Or you can hold lumber or a struggling baby animal, get blood smeared across your face or on your hem.

When you put your hand out, onto the wood that will be the bones of shelter, onto feathers or fur warm and squirming or dead and waiting, that's touching me. It's interacting with my soul, with my motivating force.

Do this enough and that you're attached to me, your interaction written forever in the external memory of landscape.

That's a partnership.

Of course I can come visit you in the city. I do, after all, live awfully far away. That's a visit.

Unless the city is where you keep your real heart?

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Muted

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 15:50:54 GMT

I want to talk about my relationship stuff right now. I'm in a situation where my boundaries have been trespassed so the bubble they protect needs to get bigger. I need to compromise less, to be, well, not less understanding but less willing to bend. I need to pull harder on Threshold, my primary relationship, and invest more time and love into that one.

I probably also need to start nosing around for someone who's into kitchen-table-style and maybe cometary poly with my land. It's a big ask but I'm in no hurry. There are folks out there as nomadic as I am rooted. Threshold accepts all comers; like my heart it's full of the fingerprints of everyone who's been and worked here: I will always have built the pigshed with Josh, whatever happens to that relationship; I will always have built the quailshed and wheelbarrowed dirt into the garden its first year with Tucker even if we end up not speaking again; Robyn will always have built my firewood retainers with me. I find these traces of people comforting; they can leave my life but they can never /not have been there/. In every case, even if there's pain, the memories are a reminder of love.

I still can't quite set down the core of what's going on. My hope, I suppose, is that I'll be able to talk it out with Tucker and come to a workable resolution. The reality is that things have changed substantially regardless of what the resolution is. My internal part of the story won't change. Still, still. Still. I'm not ready to write the eulogy.

Because I'm not ready to write about what I want to write about, I'm just reaching out for contact. I'm inscribing myself in these words and so coming to believe that I am more than these wait-and-hope issues that have surrounded me and prevented me from going forward. I'm not good at waiting; I disappear into it. I am better at multitasking, at going and doing something else for awhile, then at coming back when it's time.

So last night, instead of waiting, I resurrected my 4runner. She's been sitting in the driveway for a year, since I started using the company truck. Originally she had a battery charger on her but unbeknownst to me the geese pulled it out of the wall and the battery went unregistrable-dead. I bought a new battery and was going to install it, well, soon: I lose the company truck next Friday so I need to make sure she runs.

But with these freeze-thaw cycles her tires were going flat finally, so I needed to get the air compressor out of her trunk. Problem is, her automatic locks wouldn't open without the battery. Josh said swapping in the battery was easy and honestly it was; after the kind of tools I grew up with socket sets are miraculous. and the whole thing was done very quickly. Then I got the tires filled - she's still in winters from last year so she's legal - and got her moving.

I'd forgotten how much learning curve there is on vehicles; the word truck just went in for maintenance every 5000km and I didn't really have to know how to do much. It's good to have her going again. I do think I need to find a trailer to haul feed with though. I'm waffling between a flatdeck (more work for the usual uses but more versatile) and a stock trailer (could leave feed in and don't even have to unload and it's bear safe; can actually move animals easily in an emergency). A cargo trailer might be the best of both worlds, jury-riggable in case of a wildfire to move animals but with fewer constraints on the internal space.

The freeze has paused here. It rained all night and everything's mud. I'll be picking up sticks and baling twine so the snowblower can wander around without dying, and I'll be trying to set a foundation for the snowblower shed.

First, though, I do a last feed run with the truck, consult about a new kitten, and spend some thanksgiving time with my boss-for-one-more-week.

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Thanksgiving

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 16:22:00 GMT

15 kilos of sauerkraut is crocked. 2.2% brine, a small batch with jalapenos and a larger bath mostly plain.

2 kilos of jalapenos are crocked, 5% brine with a couple onions.

6 500ml jars of quince sauce are canned, with more quince to process as they ripen.

8 750ml jars of dilly beans canned.

6(?) 500ml jars of jalapeno tomato sauce.

50lbs of beets to process into pickles, not yet done.

3 cabbages left, likely ~10 kilos altogether, they can go in the fridge.

A pot of salsa needs to be cooked down and canned some more.

Tomatoes in the freezer need to be cooked down at my leisure before butchering happens to clear freezer space, the last of the poblano peppers need doing soon.

Grain needs to be brought in and potatoes picked up (it's not really dug, I did them in straw so it's a hand operation). Then the garden is done and some birds can go in it for pest control over winter - probably ducks and chickens.

So I had a busy weekend doing all the kraut and jalapenos (yay food processor!) and some salsa and whatnot. That sort of thing is a lot of work but I find it relaxing and soothing on a bone-deep level. I've also had time off so I've almost zeroed my banked hours, and I notice when I work 40 hours per week or less it's easier for me to be happy; maybe because I have energy to do these things I like and that feel fulfilling.

My boss is making noises about getting together and doing food things this weekend (Canadian thanksgiving weekend). He's as much or more of a food person as I am, so I'm looking forward to this. I also have a couple of bottles of orange wine I need to do a side by side taste on, and there's no way I could ever drink 2 bottles of wine on my own, so.

I've also become part of an online poly group that has a group video chat once a month, and that's coming up next weekend. It's good timing because I definitely need to work through some things I'm feeling about this relationship with Tucker and time. He's away again, he's been away a lot lately. His new new relationship has been mostly unobtrusive, so there's nothing to push it to crisis point. But I'm starting to think about nosing around for another person and I definitely want to have a scaffold for the relationship before I end up in NRE with someone, before I make a decision on my job aka where to live, and honestly it's important to me to know this stuff anyways. He's been really slow to decide and talk about this stuff and I need to figure out how to handle that, and how to know if there's an option other than just entirely opting out. There was for Josh.

At the pagan thing I got to spend a bunch of time with T, my ... person. Ritual snuggle-buddy, at once point girlfriend, now an enduring less describable loving connection. She's not been doing so great in some ways and has been doing better in others. I miss her but it was so good to talk.

So I guess I'm feeling like myself again, my home feels full of food & security. For that I am so grateful.

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What even is a relationship?

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 20:15:58 GMT

Things are exciting here.

My site at the company is trying to be sold. I may or not lose my job when the sale goes through. There is some government intervention that is leading to uncertainty about the outcome.

Tucker may or not stay in my town to live but he doesn't know, and if he moves I may or not move with him.

There was this bear.

12 new piglets (10 surviving) and they are adorable.

It's been raining for the last month.

And Tucker's found a new person. Last year about this time he started something like 5 relationships in 2 months, was pretty dishonest about some of them, violated some agreements we had, and got angry at me for my boundaries around it all. I was pretty trepidatious this time. It started the same: "oh, I'm going to go see this friend I don't know well" beforehand and transitioned into "actually we've loved each other for twenty years and need to talk every day" after the fact.

I mean, at this point that's what I expect from folks new to poly. It's so hard for me to get off on the right foot and really enjoy the other folks' relationship when everything feels evasive and hidden. Don't get me wrong, I've felt poly guilt and struggled to tell partners things, and it's taken me time to be able to realistically assess my relationship patterns to have a sense of how things might proceed. Still. I do like to have some sense of what's going on if we're going to talk about it at all, and even more importantly I need to not be misled. Stepping away for some months and letting the NRE sort itself out, my preferred method, was not an option here.

So I tried another tack this time: get real clear on what I needed from the relationship, focus on that, and be honest about my terror around repeating the last experience and still not feeling heard about it. It feels especially rough when... that all happened when I was evacuated from the fire last year, and this year it's now that I'm losing my job and trying to decide whether to leave Threshold and my town. I just don't have extra bandwidth to be present and level.

The reason I stay in a relationship with Tucker, especially as close a relationship as I am, is that he does the work. It can take him some time but he certainly does not often use "let me work on that" as a way to duck out of responsibility and buy time: he actually does work on it.

After a day of echoes of last year (with "you always ruin my relationships" overtones) he seems to have figured out a way to be present and loving when we're together, to actually spend time with me, and things have been pretty great. He was even super supportive around the bear and being a second person as backup, which... well, we'll talk about the farm and how I feel about other people being involved in that some other time. We also still have some planned vacations together rather than all future planning being eaten up with trying to stay in proximity to people several thousands of miles away, which also helps a great deal.

Looks like the route forward with this one is "put my needs on the table and don't ask too many questions".

A complicating factor, not so related to the new relationship, is that I need to ask questions. Deciding which job I'm taking next is a big thing for me, and if I move again I intend it to be my last (which I also said about this one and that may still have been true). He's been up here nearly a year and maybe doesn't want to stay in Fort, which means that this would be the time to move. I'd really like that nailed down, or at least start the process of "do we want to share a house/a property with 2 houses" and "is there a place that covers his needs and my needs actually in the world where one need is affordability"

My hope is he'll do the work on that one too. Definitely I'm struggling with the uncertainty.

Phew.

Somewhere in there I ordered and planted a whole bunch of african violet leaves, so I must believe there's a future. I picked a mess of beans and need to pickle them. I ordered a sauerkraut crock. The seasons will turn, and turn again. I always find that comforting.

Here's to a boring winter.

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Fertile

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 19:54:25 GMT

As always, polyamory is the plough which turns up everything hiding below the soil, letting me see and deal with it before the field can be sown.

Which is interesting as a metaphor, because while I'm not entirely a no-dig gardener I do lean that way. I am, however, absolutely not a no-dig relationshipper.

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