Week in Retrospect

[triadruid]

I suppose overall it didn't kick my ass quite as thoroughly on a physical level as the week before (when I ended up in front of the City Council, the Division Directors, the City Manager and the Department Heads, and on Channel 2, plus a slew of meetings and events in the evenings to go to), but still...whew!

It started 'right' off with doozie of a dream about the wedding and polyamory. Most realistic nightmare I've had to date, which I suppose is a small blessing, but still a whopper. As I told featherynscale though, it's not that I think she (or any of my friends) would intentionally do anything to embarrass me; just that we're not exactly properly socialized for the Friends/Sunday-church-and-coffee crowd.

Unfortunately that incident, and some other stuff rattling around in my head, left me in a pretty bizarre mood for the bulk of the week. I know I was grouchy at Tuesday's Druid Study Group when everybody else wanted to have fun, so sorry if I was a wet blanket.

Thursday rolled around and I had to work that night, but kittenpants called me to ask when I was going to be off work, as lulumay was in town and a bunch of people were going to McCoy's. Lucky me, not only am I getting off work earlier than I originally thought that morning, but I was right down the road. I actually beat everyone else there, which meant I got to jump hug lulumay first (well, after her illustrious hosts, the Baughmii, that is). Much more food, fun, and homecoming hugs ensued. The highlights include the look on her face when she heard that The Rules™ are being spread far and wide, even in her absence. She's looking forward to the day someone says "Rule #2!" to her, and she wasn't the one to tell it to them; the quest for World Domination proceeds apace. I also got a Make-Up Kiss out of her when she inadvertently switched my gender in conversation, so that's not bad either.

Of course, so much fun doesn't come without a cost, and I rolled into the driveway around midnight-thirty. My own insomnia kept me up until closer to 3am; but only one more day of work and then I can sleep, right? Well, kinda...Friday night was featherynscale's Birthday Flaunt! Luckily the computers at work were slow enough sending my maps to the printer that afternoon that I got to catch a 20-minute power nap, or I'd never have stayed awake for it. After 837 costume changes, we bundled 9 pagans in eyeliner and accompanying outfits (the eyeliner was the important part, requested specifically by the birthday girl) into two vehicles and set out for that bastion of propriety; the riverboat casino! This was a new experience on me, as I had never been to one before, though they have the riverboat casinos in Iowa. I mentioned at one point that I thought riverboat casinos had to be able to move once or twice a year, like the (actual boats) in Iowa do. Not so, apparently; this place is built *around* two riverboat casinos, with concrete columns anchoring something like 140,000 sq. ft. of gambling glee. Despite my disillusionment, our crew (we were joined by some latecomers while we were dining) of two Scotsmen in kilts, a pirate, a wench, a vinyl-clad birthday girl, Eeeeevil from the KCRF, a biker babe, a satin-shirted man in enough lipliner to make you forget his eyes, and a couple of 'straight men' for contrast managed to cause a sufficient ruckus. Going to watch Lonesome Hank and the Heartaches's last set and having the birthday girl get 27 swats on stage from the frontman probably helped. So did their announcement to the general crowd that they'd be playing at our wedding, mentioned while kittenpants was up and dancing with abandon. We eventually wore ourselves out and tramped on home around 2:30, 3:00am. Despite featherynscale's leonine protestations, no one took her to bed that night. However the next morning she got a second set of 27 spankings, which seemed to warm her...heart, and later in the weekend a third (get it?) set of 27 in the form of orgasms. I think she's over it (the pouting, I mean, not the orgasms)...

Saturday was the ultimate in laziness; I don't think we were vertical and conscious for more than 3 hours before 6pm. Eventually we decided that we had better go to the wedding shower being thrown in our honor (the concept of a bridal shower being vaguely horrifying in its pinkness, we opted to have a gender-neutral shower for some friends and family). Unfortunately, there were some serious oversights on the part of the aunt throwing the party which led to several people (part of the wedding party, in fact) not being invited, which was a real downer once we found out. Our officiants didn't make it either, one of them working and the other working on Sunday's ritual, but more on that later. All in all it was a fairly small, quiet gathering, with a lot of family who looked like they could be extras on Friends. I like several members of my fianceé's family, but as a whole they're like another species. Thanks to those friends who did come out and visit with us; and to the cousins, brother, and father: thanks for making it bearable!

You would think this would be enough for one weekend, but if you did, you'd be wrong (or just don't know us). My insomnia persisted, Saturday night Sunday morning and I fell asleep about 5:30, until 10:30am. That seemed a reasonable time to get up anyway, since Monday morning would come soon enough, and I couldn't afford to get my Circadian rhythms reversed... so I puttered about a while until other people started rolling out of bed. We concocted lunch out of leftovers and things around the house, talked for a while, and then dashed to ritual after putting ourselves back together. Despite leaving the house at 3:40, we got to Gaia with 4 minutes to spare (oh ye of little faith), and thus did not incur saffronhare's wrath by making her lock us out. I had an inkling that her team was planning something ass-kicking for "Riding the Lion", but I was still surprised at the intensity they developed in that space. I had a hard time getting into the 'ritual' aspects of it for reasons I won't go into here, but as a process it was something I very much needed. The general idea was to emulate the Galli who devoted themselves to Cybele by voluntarily castrating themselves; yesterday, the only knife used was to cut off the physical representation (medicine bag) of those things that block you from growing a greater relationship with divinity.

Like I said, I had some difficulty getting into the ritual at first, and definitely some difficulty figuring out what I wanted to divest myself of. After some time though I decided to extend my pledge to work on my honesty, and passed away my lies, to myself and others. With that gone, of course, there was a space left, so I took an oath: I vow to speak no word that is not true.

Some of you may recognize it as the first of the Three Oaths from Robert Jordan's Aes Sedai, which was the basis for it, but it's going to be all my own, not a fantasy. As featherynscale put it, I'm probably going to be a bit of an extra-special bastard for a while, while I work out the details of what I can say, and omit, and the like, but it's important to me. It's equally important that people call me on it if they see me not living up to my oath, although I promise there will be no self-flagellation if I'm not perfect at it. Lacking an 'oath rod', I'll do the best I can. I need to do this, for me, for my well-being, and because I'm going to be taking another oath in a couple of weeks...