Maybe ALL writing is self-help.

"Oracule" by djh (2014)

Why this blog? Because I sometimes feel so alone -- sober among the partiers; bi/poly/kinky in the straight, mononormative culture (which is also "vanilla," but with an unexamined predilection for male dominance and CNC.
Just as I started writing this morning, the Beatles' "Hey Little Girl" came on the iPod, without so much as a content warning for ageplay...)

I am tremendously lucky that my nesting partner sees and accepts all the facets of me, and that my kinky lovers are either polyamorous themselves or bear great affection for my existing bond with Mr. D. I still struggle against the incessant clamor of capitalist patriarchy -- ageism, body hate, rape culture, the addiction mindset of consumerism.

Even at Woodhull, there was a "Bubbles & Burlesque" event with free champagne. An attendee said that 6 or 7 people offered her glasses of bubbly. At 5 years sober, I would still find that exhausting. I want sober meetups, happy mocktail hours, ways for us to find and support one another.

Back when I was struggling in early sobriety, I was invited to a bachelorette party at a drag show. Obviously an excellent thing, but a boozy venue and crowd. My amazing friend Joan_Arkham (not a teetotaller) offered to stay sober with me for the evening. Her solidarity was a huge boost. She was just skipping one night's booze, but I felt safe and supported and appreciated for who I am. All it took was one person who understood what I was going through and had my back.

Austin Kleon says that self-help is an oxymoron. He quotes Mohsin Hamid as saying "UNLESS YOU’RE WRITING ONE, a self-help book is an oxymoron." So, OK, my act of writing a memoir is self-help. I also derive a lot of quiet, solitude-based help from other people's written advice and experiences, so I am content to be doing a little work in that genre.

I had planned to post today about enthusiastic consent, performative consent*, and other related concepts/dynamics, but pulling that together is taking longer than I expected. I want words I don't have. So in the meantime, here are a few wise words from other people. When I start a fresh spiral notebook, I like to put a quote inside the front cover, so it's not intimidatingly blank and unspoiled. Here are a few of my perennial faves:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -- Philo

"The reward for conformity was that everybody liked you except yourself." -- Rita Mae Brown

"Your inner critic is a boring person you wouldn't want to talk to at a party." -- Tavi Gevinson

"When we succeed, we raise the exhilaration level of the universe. We even raise it a little when we fail." -- Tom Robbins

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads." -- Erica Jong

"A party without cake is really just a meeting." -- Julia Child

* Thank you to @blkpomegranate for the term "performative consent." I want to write at length about the workshop they gave at Woodhull, but my thoughts need a bit longer to take shape.

In other linkage... I often find I want to refer back to The Pervocracy, especially the concept of The Missing Stair. And I want to talk about enthusiastic consent, but "Before We Try To Talk About ‘Enthusiastic Consent’ We MUST Talk About Consent" (The Good Men Project). 

If you have thoughts on the linked pieces or anything else here, please comment! You can also catch me at @dirty_sober on Twitter.