I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

I always think these posts will be "last one for a while", but there's just more coming up all the time. :-}

This whole Tiger Woods thing is causing a fair bit of commentary from the non-monogamy faction (much as the whole Bill Clinton thing did 12 years ago). But in particular, I couldn't not repost the one from my fandom object Jay Michaelson, to wit:
It's Not Just Tiger: Monogamous Marriage Is An Anomaly
"... Whatever we think about such normative questions, the facts of the matter are beyond dispute: monogamous marriage as an ideal that's actually meant to be upheld is a very recent, and not very successful, innovation."

Anyway. Moving on.

Some weeks back, ablock found me this paper, which is 10 years old, but still relevant:
What Psychology Professionals* Should Know About Polyamory
*Including, clearly, the one(s) consulted by my mother within the past three months.

Secondly, I read this NPR story earlier this year (though it dates from 2008). It made me cry the first time through, and has stuck with me incredibly over the past several months, though I had to go dig around a bit to find it again:
Two Families Grapple with Sons' Gender Preferences; Psychologists Take Radically Different Approaches in Therapy

( What does this have to do with polyamory? Nothing, directly; but what it has to do with is the radical difference between hiding from your own -- or someone else's -- truth, and embracing it. So, um, this got long. )

FYI, the second article in the series is on transgendering puberty, here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90273278

Heeb Magazine announces the 2009 Heeb 100 -- their top picks of Jewish Americans who are "young, smart and innovative." (Edited To Add: Sure, not as insightful as The Jewish Week's 36 under 36, or the Forward 50, each of which had the good sense to cite hatam_soferet! but I still find this kind of index interesting. >:-)

Ethan Zuckerman reviews a talk by Daniel Gilbert called "The Four Answers", on why it’s so hard to know what makes us happy. ETA: The link to this came via a post (on my birthday, entitled "Joy") from vlvn_rabbi, whom I don't know but have started reading because I like reading about the things she writes about, even if I am not (currently) often in a place of sufficient mindfulness to fully take them in.

And, in not unrelated news, and also in honor of National Coming Out Day yesterday, ( have some links on polyamory. )

Was good con. But more low-key somehow than most of my con experiences thus far.

This was partly because I was emphatically Not Working (paid my own membership and everything). And also because I hardly went to any parties (though I do wish I'd managed to stop by the notorious Rocket Fuel party Sat nite, even after I fell asleep at the tech party). And probably because, for the most part, rather than engaging in lots of con interaction, what I was doing was hanging out with existing non-con-staff pals (mattrolls and jessruth, with brief bouts of Jon and Jesse, whom I don't see nearly often enough anyway either) . This was also good, but still. I didn't even make it into the Art Show, and that's saying something.

On the other hand, I did actually attend two whole panels this con, and that's also a first! In fact they were back to back, on Saturday afternoon; naturally, they were gnomi's LJ/blogging panel, and then the advanced poly panel (I missed the intro poly section Friday night, but I probably didn't need it all that much, anyway :-) Both were engaging and provided food for thought (and hopefully for future journal exploration). mattrolls came with me to the first, but not the second -- and then I actually wished that he had, because I'm certain there would have been food for thought for him as well. Goodness knows jessruth was struck by more than her share of personal insights just from listening to the discussions.

But so anyway, I think that if I do go to Lunacon, I may go back to working Tech, and thus be assured more quality running-around time with ablock and kalessin and other fun folks :-)