starvation economies

I got in to SF at around midnight last Friday night and, after finding a security guard on the University of SF campus, discovered the dorms I would be spending more than a week at. Strange enough to have to stay in dorms again. Stranger still that, in that cold night, I realized this week would be immense. I realized it would mean change in my writing life but didn't count on change in my whole life. So I'm coming back into it.

The whole race/ethnicity talk in my writing group is a huge thing for me, especially given it would happen when my energy and body weren't even in the same city. Stranger still that La Deb and I would end up talking this week and decide we would be better as friends. This was really unique considering Deb never wanted a relationship but, in spending time with me, realized she did. More strange is that she realized I couldn't be in one yet. Even if I feel more ready.

Of course I'm thinking about relationships. Yes, I want one but I don't want to be tied down. I saw that awful Frida movie with Salma Hayek (the best parts of the movie were her breasts) and found resonance with the converation Frida and Diego had in their bed before they married. Frida asked for loyalty and he said he could give that, but that he could not give fidelity. (Note to self: work on a definition of fidelity because fidelity for all of america means just one person's hands on your for all your life but has also meant being faithful to duties or obligations (doesn't this mean loyalty?) and for others fidelity means having an honest and open understanding with a partner.)

Because I've not found a woman who'll allow me to put this into practice for long term, for now these ideas seem to make sense to me and/or serve as my ideal. I've been with women who are okay with this for the short-term and I didn't go off running at the next moment to get naked with someone else. It's not like I want the player role. Moreso, the whole thing becomes more about having to use the words commitment and exclusive which trip me.

I've never quite understood why a "starvation economy", where love is viewed as a commodity - if shared becomes less to give to another/others - was ever allowed to succeed so well in this country. I take it back to colonial times, when judges and religious leaders, seeing that fewer young people were getting married, decided to offer benefits to formal marriage. Hand in hand that strange couple in the corner, the one everyone pretends not to see : government and religion. And it all comes down to money.