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As usual, so much to say and so little time to say it.

I've been taking the T since I found out my license was suspended over some stupid parking ticket I forgot to pay. And this morning, rather than try to copy-edit a guest article I've been sitting on since last November, I just stood. I just was.

I thought inside my head of all the T-stories, all the poems, novels, short stories waiting to be born on these trains.

And then I got off at Science Park and walked to work.

I also checked out glitch's website today. She's a great writer, I'm so glad to see publishing. Her writing is hot, too—a little too hot to handle.

It's so funny the way that two different people can perceive a situation entirely differently. I didn't even know she was in cruise mode, although I remember the handing out of business cards—and come to think of it, I remember trying to hand out two separate business cards to a butch/femme couple, and the femme handing back the second card, saying "They're both going to the same place." With a nice, toothy smile. Not that I was interested in her skinny gf, no matter how butch she might be or how interesting our discussion about religion and politics at the Wendy's. I'm not shopping, I'm not looking, I'm not interested. I'm married, for Christ's sake! And it's not an open marriage, either.

I spent that evening quite happy to be part of the lesbian community in Boston, happy to have recognized people there, and happy to have met up with Glitch, whom I've been meaning to go visit since last summer. I also spent quite a bit of time explaining to people why it was that Quick wasn't there—that she'd been there, done that, founded the committee, served on the boards, that she's not a crowd person. Not that anyone really cared, but I felt it somehow necessary to let them know I was one of them—I wasn't looking, I was part of a lesbian unit. I'd earned my dyke stripes. That was more about my own insecurities as a bi woman in the lesbian community. And I was sad to know that I couldn't be walking down that street with all those other women, holding the hand of the woman I love.

The lesbian community's attitudes around sex and relationships continue to astound me. It seems like a shimmering, multifaceted diamond—every time you look at it, it shimmers and changes. Once upon a time, I was a poly dyke, but now I'm not. And that cruise-y energy really makes me uncomfortable today. There are numerous reasons for that which I don't feel like going into, but the main thing, I suppose, is that I see glitch going through a stage I can now recognize myself as having passed.

She once said to me, while I was having trouble with Quick, that she'd always seen me as a poly bi-dyke, and that the only thing that really shocked her was that I'd been in a monogamous lesbian relationship for as long as I had.

I've been in that same monogamous lesbian relationship even longer today, and I still identify as a bi dyke. But the poly part was something I played with, something I tried to make work, but really didn't. Kind of like being butch.

What I'm coming to realize in general—and if you've known me over the years, you'll realize what a strange thing it is for me to say—is that I'm really not comfortable with sex, period.

It came too early for me, and I wasn't ready to handle it. It was forced on me, and then I forced it on myself, because it made me feel not just good, but powerful, in control. I tried everything there was to try. More than any other drug, I've seen the ugly side of it, the dirty-smelly-carpet side, the what-the-fuck-was-I-thinking side. I'm just beginning to realize the consequences.

I was watching the love scene from Meet Joe Black last night—Quick was out of town on business. The first time I saw it, I thought it was kind of silly. But last night, all by myself with only the cats for company, the energy of the actors, the images, and most of all the music, stirred something in me. And eventually I started crying. I realized I was crying for something I never thought I'd regret: my lost innocence.