Misha's company picnic was yesterday, and she invited both Chris and I to go. Rather than the usual thing of going out to a park and having hot dogs and cheap beer, however, her company decided to have its picnic at the Woodland Park Zoo.In other words, ZOO DAY!
We got together about 3:30 or so and drove up to the zoo. We got in (yay free zoo tickets!) and made our way to the picnic area, where were were pleasantly surprised by them giving us each bags of schwag. *Good* schwag--a zoo sport bottle with Komodo dragons on it, a big cup with more komodo dragons, a nice t-shirt with primates on it, an otter keychain, a pen, and a nametag of our very own. I was duly impressed.
It was the end of the day at the zoo (and we got to stay in past the normal closing time) so there weren't very many people there. My favorite part (as it always is) was the Night House. It's an exhibit where they swap the days and nights of nocturnal critters, so you get to see animals you'd ordinarily never see running around. There was a family of anteaters--two big ones and a little one following close behind.
The Night House is cool, because you really do need to be quiet and still and just watch. I can see colors even in dim light, so I'm pretty good at picking out hidden critters, but the best way to find the nighttime creatures is to be silent and still and watch for motion. Stare into the brush and wait. A movement out of the corner of your eye attracts your attention, and something that was at first a coincidental cluster of branches is now a bat, or a slow loris, or a porcupine.
And Misha learned the value of paying attention to me when there's one of those disposable cameras around. Hers (they gave all the real employees one in their schwag bags) was sitting in the middle of the table as we were talking. Innocent. Tempting. So I picked it up, casually, ran my fingers over it, read the directions.
And brought the camera up to my eye and snapped a picture before she could react.
I laughed at her dirty look and put the camera back on the table.
After dinner (which was excellent; this company certainly doesn't scrimp on the food) we went to see the otters. I joined Chris and Misha late, having made a stop at the bathroom and then dawdled a bit by the snowy owl. They were sitting in the otter viewing room, watching one otter swim in front of the glass. In the background, a big goat of some sort was climbing a tree, trying to get to the green bits it hadn't already eaten.
It was a beautiful evening--a cloudy, foggy morning that had given way to a sunny afternoon, about 73 degrees with a nice breeze. We sat and talked about otters and laughed together.
It was, indeed, a good zoo day. I had fun.
And Chris wrote about his zoo day, too...
is he real
or a ghost-lie
she feels she isn't heard
and the veil tears and rages
till her voices are remembered
and her secrets can be told
...
so she prays for a prankster
and lust in the marriage bed
and he waits til she can give
and he waits
and he waits
tori amos, "lust"It took me a long time to like this song.
On this album, I first fixated on "suede". "there are days I feel your twin. Peekaboo. Underneath your skin."
But then, listening to my .mp3s at work (all stuff I own that I've ripped and keep to myself. don't look at me like that.) I happened to listen to "Lust" a couple of times in the same hour. and I finally heard the line, "till her voices are remembered and her secrets can be told."
I become so hemmed in by other people; what they expect of me, what they want of me, what they want me to be. I forget that I have a voice; I have voices. Not just in my own head but outside of my body. I have a say in my own life; I can choose where to go and when. I have a perfect right not to feel like doing something. I have a perfect right to change my mind, to be inconsistent. I even have a perfect right to forget things if I don't want to remember them.
I have a perfect right to be all of me.
It's a tough lesson for me. I am practiced in the art of being a shell, a chameleon, being whatever is wanted or required of me, with whatever that was not required being valueless.
I have never been good at saying "no". I'm easy to talk into stuff, and I hate it. I'm starting to get better about saying it and making it stick.
I have remembered my voices.
And now I can begin to tell my secrets, my truths.
I'm thinking about making it official and practicing celibacy for a while.I think I may need to give myself some time off from the search to satisfy my hormones. Of course, it's not all about hormones--otherwise, my most excellent sex toys would be enough to satisfy. I itch and ache for the sense of *connection* that comes with a really good relationship. That sense of bonding where you might as well be naked in front of her, for all the good your clothes and your shields do.
But I'm not going to find it by looking for it.
Strange. I'm so damned independent, but at the same time I would really like a partner, someone to spend lazy Saturday mornings in bed with, to read the newspaper with, to cook with and have pillow fights with and run away for the weekend with. I'd like a serious bout of NRE (new relationship energy)--that period of time where you can't get enough of each other, when everything else pales in importance to the beloved. I've come to the conclusion that NRE's important to me when establishing a new relationship. It establishes that nakedness, that trust, and gives a nice period for sexual experimentation, where you can find the other person's hot buttons, find out what turns them on. Talking about it's one thing, but I forget all too easily. But sensations emblazon themselves in my memory. NRE establishes that heat, those memories.
I have done stupid things in the heat of NRE. Fucking a girl in her ex boyfriend's house on a snowy night and forgetting to call my own boyfriend and tell him I wouldn't be home that night. Stuff like that. But I also remember that supreme happiness.
Ah, well. Someday. I still do have faith.
