Red to Green, Part Three (of Four)

…in which Bree's sex life gets even dodgier.

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1995-'96. Drama factor: 10! Notes: Oh, lord, where to begin? Well, you've read the overview of the situation already. I'll describe the players and the context in a semi-systematic way:

Center branch: Bianca was my lover for about 1 ½ - 2 years. Bianca was living with her partner Bella for about 4 years at the time we met. The three of us negotiated my involvement with Bianca, so the connection between us is green. Over time, however, as Bianca and I got more emotionally involved, Bella's consent eroded, yet the relationship persisted. I'm not proud of this, and I gather Bianca isn't either.

The early period, counter-clockwise from top: Elsie and I had a sweet fling in the spring/summer of '95, til she went off to be a garden monk at a nearby zen center. Bianca was apprised of this, whether she liked it or not. I also had the opportunity to sleep with Lola and Iris again at various times during my involvement with Bianca, and these were legit and openly discussed. Note that Lola and Iris, having met through me, were dating at one point previous to this period, which I found revolting.

Throughout my time with Bianca, she continued to burn a torch for her erstwhile lover, C., who she had rare opportunities to be with during our run. This was a major source of tension between Bianca and Bella, but I was so very enthralled with Bianca's flair for drama and always keen to hear stories about her Great Love C. Meanwhile, Bella had a lover for a spell, Edward, whose presence kind of relaxed the stress between Bella and me and provided a bit of freedom for Bianca and I to spend some time together during the mid-point of our affair.

Later on in the relationship, as Bianca and I became more emotionally enmeshed and Bella became less okay with our affair, my other involvements went underground. I was fucking our mutual friend Pookie, who also worked at the Org, and that was a direct affront to Bianca; in fact, very unfairly to Pookie, I consciously used her as a wedge to put some distance between me and Bianca. Meanwhile, Pookie had also fucked both my exes, Lola and Iris. We were all such class acts, right? I also slept with a sweetly nerdy boy, Jarek, made out with a new friend Kate, and then had a couple-week fling with yet another co-worker, Irene. Of those involvements, I managed to come clean about the boy, but I outright lied to Bianca about Irene, which put the final nail in the coffin. During this late period, Bella had a clandestine affair with her friend Hank as well, so Bianca was getting grief on all sides. Not that she was the innocent in the situation; after all, she had continued her affair with me long after Bella had clearly stated it was no longer okay. High point: Bianca and I had the most indescribably hot sexual rapport. Low point: it should just never get this low.

1997-'98. Drama factor: 2. Notes: When Bianca and I were finally done with all that, and Iris moved back to Santa Cruz from points East and North, we made another go at being girlfriends, this time for about two years. We always maintained an open agreement, but neither of us really put it into practice – I think we were both sufficiently worn down from all the previous turmoil. We once took my friend Kate (see the Bianca Bramble) to bed with us, which was fun and low-key. I always nursed a handful of crushes, but nothing materialized. Then, toward the end of our relationship, after it was clear things weren't going to work out long-term for us, Iris became involved with Shannon, a local dyke-about-town. We broke up within a month or so. High point: my first really adult relationship, and sharing our lives together. Low point: we were both pretty bored.

* * *

I then entered a beautiful (and rare, for me) period of being single. No chart here, but honorable mentions to Callie, Kate (again) and the random playmates who passed through my life in the fair annum of 1999, the year I finally quit the Peace Org, road tripped across the country, and landed the very unstressful jobs of making sandwiches and scrubbing down hot tubs.

* * *

2000-2004. Drama factor: 3. Notes: As you can see, structurally, my relationship with Nat was almost a mirror image of my relationship with Iris, as far as nonmonogamy goes, even down to the three-way, this time with a random Craigslist hookup. I was adamant that I wanted to make nonmonogamy happen this time in a mature way, but I was still restrained. Natasha had had a very bad pseudo-polyamorous bramble of her own with her ex-husband, just previous to our relationship. Internally, I had my own unresolved emotional issues and guilt, and fears about hurting Nat in the shadow of her situation with her ex. So I stalled on it for a long five years. My most persistent crush at the time, Rita, became fuel for some low-level drama between Nat and I, but really nonmonogamy was one of the big elephants in the room for the entire course of our relationship. High point: hands-down the most mature relationship I'd been in to that point. Low point: we were both repressing what we really needed.

One more installment, kids…

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Red to Green, Part Two (of Four)

…in which Bree's follies continue.

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1992. Drama factor: 4. Notes: After many months of sexual tension, Casey and I finally started dating. In the interim, I was still burning a candle for Iris, and had hooked up with Ube's UCLA housemate at some Jewish student retreat. I had the opportunity to see her again after Casey and I had gone GF. I was straightforward with Casey, but she wasn't happy about it. After I moved to Santa Cruz that fall, Casey and I both became involved with other people, she with a guy friend of hers and me with Lola, who would become my first really long-term partner. We discussed both our other involvements with much maturity, and at that point, even though I was open to our relationship continuing, Casey read this moment as our break up. At least, that's how I think it went (Casey – any feedback from your side of the table?) High point: those magical, unforgettable hugs. Low point: showing up to meet Casey with a fresh Lola hickey on my neck. At my eldest nephew's bar mitzvah. Real classy, Bree.

1992-1994. Drama factor: 7. Notes: Lola and I were together for two years, and during that time, I was always clear about wanting to be open. She was willing to negotiate, but it wasn't ever something she was into, and so I remained nonmonogamous mostly in my fantasies. I still had the Energy with Iris, and became really smitten with my friend A. who lived in Tucson and wrote the most intellectually juicy letters, but I didn't discuss these emotional involvements with Lola. Somehow I was able to talk openly with her about my crush on my friend G., maybe because my feelings for men have always been less serious and therefore seemingly less threatening to my primary relationships. G. and I had made out at a party early on in my relationship with Lola, before we were calling ourselves girlfriends, and I didn't reveal that. I ended up smooching a casual friend, and Lola wasn't thrilled, but we discussed it at least. Then toward the end of our relationship, Lola and I both kissed our mutual friend Spider unbeknownst to each other! I think I may not have known that Spider and Lola kissed until years later. So somehow the nonmonogamy was not working properly in that relationship, even though I was constantly preoccupied with it. High point: a lot of great communication, despite my intermittent tendencies toward repression. Low point: oh, that breakup really stung. It was awful for us both.

1994-early '95. Drama factor: 4. Notes: Dani and I dated but were never SO's, which I think accounts for some of why the nonmonogamy went smoother than many relationships before and after. We were also both oriented toward being open, and this was a first time for me, dating someone else as slutty as I was. The drama wasn't about the negotiations re: nonmonogamy, but about my push-pull with intimacy. Fresh from the breakup with Lola and wanting to be a free agent (not to mention I was kind of insane at this time in my life) I wasn't willing to be very present with Dani, even though I cared about her a lot. I had a passionate evening with A. (the letter-writer from Tucson), and got to fuck Iris again for the first time in years, and had a one-night fling with Kym, a friend from school. All were talked about freely with Dani (and with my other lovers). When I started to become involved with Bianca, Dani knew it was the death knell for us, and the drama spiked. High point: most above-board nonmonogamy yet. Low point: hurting Dani and the resulting awkwardness at work. Yes, we were co-workers. Can't say it was the last time for that nonsense…

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Red Turns to Green, Eventually (or) The Map of Bree's Kooky Sex Life, Part One (of Four)

Recently, two events in the Facebook universe have inspired me to do some navel-gazing (even more than the usual level, if it can be imagined) about my relationship to relationshipping. The first was the unexpected communication from Bianca, which you read about in a recent entry. The second was the mistake (or maybe it was a fruitful misstep) of accepting my aunt Rhoda's friend invitation, knowing she was going to make some sort of intrusive comment about my open relationship status on my profile. As predicted, the very first message I get from her on Facebook (thank god she didn't post it on my wall!) is simply:

Title of message: "O.R., hmmm..."
Body of message: "Dangerous territory."

When I responded with a quip that being in an open relationship is better than relationship stagnation, she didn't register the joke (pointing not so subtlety in her direction) and proceeded to claim vast knowledge on this issue from "personal experience" and to grill me about whether Astrid and I are in therapy.

Now, I know that Rhoda is just concerned about me, and granted, she's doing it in a hip, been-there-done-that kinda bohemian artiste way, and not in a prunesy old spinster aunt haven't-had-nothin'-near-my-twat-since-the-Ford-administration way, but the message couldn't be clearer: you don't know what you're doing, and this is wrong.

* * *

This frustrating exchange with Rhoda paired with the more positive (but still quite emotionally provoking) communication I had with Bianca conjured up a lot of rumination for me about my relationship history, and just how far back polyamory goes in my life. While it may be new information to Aunt Rhoda, I've been in some form of nonmonogamous situation in all my significant relationships since the first time I kissed Scarlett back in 1991, when I was all of 19 years old. Of course, I cannot boast the cleanest, most conscientious record devoid of any moral ambiguity or outright impropriety for these last eighteen years; nevertheless, on contemplating this history—and geekily applying it to eleven color-coded charts—I realize that the improprieties began to melt away with the years of experience. I don't have it all figured out by any means, but I (now, at least) know how to be honest with my partners and my lovers, and honor my own desire for more loving connections (or just playfully sexy ones) in my life.

So, over the course of several entries, I'll be guiding you through the sometimes naïve, often messy, and always amusing history of my poly love life, as seen in two-dimensional line-drawn splendor!





* * *


1991. Top row: Me, Scarlett, her husband Norbert; bottom row: Scarlett's other lover D., and his girlfriend R. Drama factor (scale of 1 to 10) 6.5. Notes: As far as I knew, Norbert was vaguely aware that Scarlett had other lovers, but it wasn't go-go-go polyamory. Meanwhile, D., Scarlett's other lover, happened to be my boss at the hippy-dippy café where I worked, and his short-term girlfriend during this hot mess was Scarlett's lifelong best friend. High point: Scarlett literally made my knees weak. Low point: bless her, but she was such a tease.

1992. Top row: Me, Iris; bottom row: a one-night stand crush of mine named Ria, and the multitude of her minions. Drama factor: 2. Notes: Iris and I were each other's first official girlfriends, and this first incarnation of our romantic relationship lasted all of two months. While Iris was away for the holidays, I slept with Ria, who was Mrs. C's housemate. I had somehow thought this was okay with Iris, on account of having discussed nonmonogamy with her, but years later, I found out talking about the issue abstractly did not constitute consent in her eyes. Go figure! Thankfully, our relationship as friends survived the indiscretion. High point: Ria was just plain hot. Low point: This might be the only time I've really "cheated" on someone.

Jump to Part Two
Jump to Part Three
Jump to Part Four

Vintage Bree: Nagel and Me

My fascination with the gaudy and über-'80s lithographs of Patrick Nagel started in about 1990 when I was known to frequent, frequently, a now-bygone coffee house in San Jose called The Phoenix. I've wanted to write about the Phoenix for years, and I may yet get around to an installment of Vintage Bree about the history of cafés-past in my life, but the thing that is germane to this story is that the upstairs of the Phoenix was lined with dozens of framed Nagel prints. The aesthetic of the café was generally more palatable than that, with minimal décor and ample seating, but for some reason, the upstairs was crowded with Nagels. This prompted B. and I to write a song about them called "Women on the Walls," in which we extolled the eerie omnipresence of Nagel's women in the café and imagined the highly dramatic stories of their lives. The song, earnest only in its minor chords, a total product of our collective early-twenties angst, became a camp classic among our friends for many years. It even utilized Berkeleyan principles (ripped naïvely from the Western philosophy class I was taking at the junior college at the time) in a refrain presenting the Women and then flippantly erasing them from consciousness with the bat of a heavily mascara'd eye. While the song remained a party trick for a number of years, it faded into obscurity just like other songs I'd written with friends from that era, many penned at the Phoenix, until B. and I had a rare opportunity to showcase it in public.

It was November of 1997, and Mag & Ana had organized Nagel Night at Trannyshack, the local irreverent underground drag club. The ode included many fabulous performers lip-synching to Eighties songs, arty send-ups of Nagel's portraits, and even a (very tasteful!) dramatic reenactment (lovingly rendered by our friend Dingo Chan) of Patrick Nagel's tragically ironic death scene (he had died in 1984 of a heart attack after doing 15 minutes of cardiovascular exercise in a charity event for the American Heart Association). Take a moment to absorb that last sentence, please.

B. and I, not in drag, nor Eighties pancake makeup, nor lip-synching, were a bit oddball in this clamour of oddness. It was the two of us on stage, with my acoustic guitar, singing this sort of hippy dirge in our very untrained voices. And now, at long last, for the first time ever at Toothpick Labeling, I present to you the original song, newly recorded in crystal clear digital!



It was quite a happening. But, dear readers, there is so much more to the story, if it can be believed! The very next day, a foggy November day it was, found me canvassing (I worked for the Peace Organization back then) in a modest neighborhood in Pacific Grove, a quaint seaside town just south of Monterey. It was my charge to find new supporters and renew the members of the Org that lived in the neighborhood. I was excited to speak with a gentleman that evening who had given $100 to the canvasser last year, and knocked fervidly at the door of his tiny bungalow apartment. The man of the house answered the door, a pale, gaunt, bespectacled guy, pleasant to talk to. As we discussed the current campaigns of the Organization from his doorway, I caught glimpses of the tiny apartment in the background. Every surface in the place was piled with papers and used dishes and scattered pieces of electronic equipment and half empty bottles of Zima and I'm sure lots of other stuff I can't remember or even fabricate for you now. The one thing that I remember with absolute clarity was perched on the coffee table among all this clutter: a white ceramic Nagel coffee mug.

I said, "Is that a Nagel coffee mug?" He replied with interest that it was, and asked me about my knowledge of Nagel. Right away I could tell that I had to keep my snooty "so bad it's good" attitude about Nagel in check. He regaled me with stories of his avid collecting and his admiration for the artwork of this master lithographer. I relayed to him the story of "Women On The Walls," and my experience of performing it in San Francisco the night before, and he was enthralled. Then, he showed me his Pride and Joy. Rolling up his shirt sleeve, he revealed one of Nagel's Women tattooed on his left bicep.

Full of awe at the synchronicity of the cosmos, I renewed his membership at $250.00 and walked off into the Monterey mist.

Today is Patrick Nagel's birthday. He would have been 63.

___________________________
Women On The Walls ©1990/2008 astrobarry & bree (with many thanks to Cisco for his engineering prowess and to B. for being there. For all of it.)

Vintage Bree: Who Killed Roy Orbison?

It is early December, 1988. I am in my high school chemistry class, junior year, chatting with my lab partners as we mix some concoction of stuff in order to make a polymer or some shit that I didn't understand then and certainly don't understand now. We are chatting about this new supergroup called the Traveling Wilburys, and all of us agree we really dig their single Handle With Care, which has been ubiquitous on the radio lately.



Then I chime in that although I really like the song, I can't stand Roy Orbison's vocals and wished he wasn't in the band. Most of us are in agreement about this as well.

The next day we all come running into class, shocked at the news of Orbison's death. All eyes are on me as the group collectively charges "You killed Roy Orbison!" And while the news was unfortunate, indeed, given the '60s crooner's renewed fame with the Wilburys, this becomes a running joke for the rest of my high school days.

Jump to the year 2000, my ten-year high school reunion. I'm having pre-reunion cocktails at my good friend Gabe's apartment in San Jose with a few other high school pals that Gabe has kept in touch with. Of these friends is one of my former chem lab partners, Tom, who somewhere between high school and adulthood has grown to a towering 6'4 from his 1988 height of about 5'6. Tom was one of the truly sweet guys in high school in a field of obnoxious rich jocks and stoner wasteoids that made up the major portion of the dudes I went to high school with. So as we get to reminiscing, Tom and I both start telling the story about that fateful conversation in chemistry class. We take turns telling pieces of the narrative, and then Tom claims that he is the one who had wished Roy Orbison's departure from the band: by his own account, Tom was the one who killed Roy Orbison!

I sit there blinking as everyone laughs at the story. Over the course of the last dozen years, Tom and I, and our selective memories, have taken credit for the uncanny wish that coincided with Roy Orbison's fatal heart attack on December 6, 1988. I decide not to correct Tom's version of events, and take another sip of gin and tonic. Wouldn't want to be Petty about it.

AIDS Walk

Instead of working on my paper today (which was due on Thursday and still isn't done, though it's nearly done) I'm joining 25,000 other folks for a little walk in Golden Gate Park. It's actually the first time I'm doing the AIDS Walk. Makes me think back to the very first time I did a charity event where I got sponsored for something - I was five or six years old, and ice skated at Vallco Mall for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Those were the days.

Lisa Lisa, Redux

My dear friend, astro-b, left a comment on the previous blog entry regarding the song Head to Toe, by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. I thought the comment deserved some particular attention, so I find myself now writing not one but two entries on the subject. He writes:

I'm impressed you know who Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam are. Perhaps the last time you heard them all those years ago was in my car...?

B. actually caught me in an illusion of "finished product," as I didn't immediately remember that the song was Lisa Lisa's, and so fetched the info online in writing the blog entry. I vividly remembered the song and, for brevity's sake, left out the part of the story which involved my reverie about who it was performed by.

As I listened to the boom box, I thought that the voice was Madonna-esque, but knew it wasn't Madge, and wondered whether it was someone like Samantha Fox or, shit, I dunno, Paula Abdul. B's surprise that I could've pulled Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam out of my ass was right on the mark, as he's known me since the '80s (in fact, since June of 1987, which makes our 21st anniversary as friends coincide with the chart-topping anniversary of Head to Toe!) and is quite familiar with this particular blind spot in my popcultural knowledge: I often can't distinguish one '80s pop songstress or girl group from another, with some exceptions, based on areas of personal interest. As an example, I still can't differentiate Bananarama from the Bangles, even though I know they sound totally different.

I never remember which one did Hazy Shade of Winter, which one did Walk Like an Egyptian, and which one did Cruel Summer (Bangles, Bangles, and Bananarama, I'm told by the magical internets. And now that I'm hearing the difference, I will admit I much prefer the Bangles.)
I'm also utterly lost trying to pick out Debbie Gibson from Kylie Minogue from Taylor Dane and so on. To B., this has always been blasphemous, because he has been obsessed with the pop divas since well before he started sucking cock. I think there must be some sort of gender component here between the fag-to-be and dyke-to-be sets, 'cause while B. was car-dancing to the chick singers of the '80s, I was scandalized by how girly they were, and opted to listen mainly to classic rock dude bands at that time in my life.

But let's get back to Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. During the '80s, while I couldn't have told you what songs were theirs, I was certainly aware of LL & CJ. But in an amalgam of my ignorance of both pop divas and hip hop, I always thought that LL & CJ had something to do with LL Cool J, given their initials lined up so nicely. I also remember thinking at the time that Lisa Lisa was the same Lisa of Wendy and Lisa, Prince's sexpot sidekicks, which, again owing to the wonder of the world wide web, I now know to be patently false.

So, yes, all this was swimming in my head yesterday at 4:30am, while I was trying to determine who sang Head to Toe and why it should serve as my personal alarm clock. I guess it was just another manic Wednesday.

"I'm not talkin' 'bout movin' in..."

I was at a taqueria in the Mission the other day, and as the lady behind the counter was making my burrito, the song "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" was floating through the sound system. The mellowly upbeat tune by '70s pop duo England Dan and John Ford Coley, unlike the very mediocre carne asada, truly hit the spot for me. I whistled the tune to myself as I walked back down 16th Street, and made a mental note to look the song up online when I got a moment. As with most of my "mental notes" this one faded into the mélange of momentary stimulations, distractions, and preoccupations, and when I tried to recall the song later (hmm...it wasn't Jackson Browne...was it Seals and Crofts?...) it had completely vanished from consciousness.

Then, by some amazing stroke of luck or fate or perhaps just the consistent marketing trends on lite rock stations throughout the Bay Area, I just heard the song again in a cafe in Berkeley! Oh happy day! I present to you "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" by England Dan and John Ford Coley, complete with a psychedelic butterfly-chick fade-in!

I'm a total dork.

I spent my free time this weekend creating a Yahoo group for alumni of my old Jewish summer camp. Not because someone commissioned me to do so, but because I thought it'd be neat! Actually, it's pretty fucking cool. I scanned bunches of old photos from the 80's and posted them, and put out a "welcome" message and then sent invites to all the people from Camp I'm still in touch with, 'bout five or six folks. Then I went onto Myspace and found a few more people and sent them invites, and now I'm just kinda waiting and seeing if anyone will bite and what kinds of pictures and discussion threads might start happening. I think that the site will probably grow to about double the membership now (so, say to ten or so people) within a few weeks, and then it'll probably be in stasis for a long time until other people feel motivated to scan photos and start chats and whatever. Maybe it'll just be the Bree Show; I have no idea at this point.

The photo on the right is classic, 'cause it's such a period piece. I've cropped myself and some other people out of the picture, but the central figure, Jenny (of course her name is Jenny) is not only wearing a John Taylor button, but also not one, but two Swatches on her wrist. Her hair, as well, is totally to die for, n'est-ce pas? This pic was taken in 1985, when we were all about 13 years old. Yes, it is I giving Jenny the "bunny ears" from two seats over. We were on a bus going on some camp field trip, probably to Great America. Ah, mem'ries.

Don't let the name fool you.

Oh my god I'm so freaking excited. Little Darlings is playing at the Castro tonight. Suddenly, more and more of my friends are coming out of the woodwork with their obsessions, too.

It is positively the best movie in the "teenage losing your virginity flick" genre, and Ube and I have been enthralled with it since the mid-80s.

Otherwise, a very relaxing day of dusting, vacuuming, making fresh salsa, and generally enjoying my summer freedom. Seriously, today I got, as Astrid put it, tongue-somewhat-in-cheek, "zen" about my house cleaning. It just feels so good to be nearly done with my bookkeeping gigs and on my way to starting a profession I am compelled by. My internship at the queer mental health clinic starts the first week in August. Meanwhile, I've got actual free time in which to live, and, yes, clean.