2015 Year in Review, Part Two

Twenty more questions about my year...

21. How did you spend Christmas?

We spent Christmas day w/ Poet’s family, and this year it was extra-special b/c we had Hunter with us – a wonderful bonus!  We spent the weekend after Christmas at the Treehouse w/ a handful of our favorite friends, family and puppies, and New Year's we spent in Chattanooga w/ a few other members of my chosen family including one I hadn’t seen in a year b/c he lives in Japan.

22. Did you fall in love?

There are a couple of puppies I’m pretty found of… and I have a new girlfriend named Sally.  ;)

And I continue to fall more in love w/ my beautiful Owner every year!

23. Have any one-night stands?

Sex was very good this year!  Apart from pawesome sex with my regular partners (w/ the pug learning to top and the Dalmatian getting all dominant) I also had a bit of sexy-time w/ a very cute, new pup at the CAPEX Halloween party.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Agent Carter and This Week Tonight with John Oliver.  We also enjoyed Star Wars Rebels, Daredevil and Jessica Jones, and also re-watching The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

I wouldn’t feel bad if something dreadful happened to Max’s ex.

26. What was the best book you read?

Non-fic:  Why Marx was Right by Terry Eagleton, Bark! by Justin St Clair, and Critical Mass by James Wolcott.

Fiction:  Hounded and Hexed by Kevin Hearne, The Killer Wore Leather by Laura Antoniou, and The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

27. What was your favorite new music of 2015?

Discovered Electro-swing... and I’m looking forward to getting a copy of Hunter’s 2015 mix CD.

28. Best new podcast?

Serial was #1.  That was surprisingly gripping.  Also enjoyed discovering The Great Albums and Simply Scottish, and a promising late-entry just launched last month: Your Next Picture Show

29.  What did you want and get?

Um… locked in chastity?  Did I want that?  *Eyes Hunter suspiciously*

30. What did you want and not get?

I couldn’t convince my Dalmation to let me take him for a ride on the Ferris wheel.  That might be a euphemism; that might not…

31. What was your favorite film of this year?

Star Wars!!!  I also liked Mr. Holmes, Ant-Man and Fury Road.

32. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Forty.  Went to Frolicon, and this year Hunter was holding my leash… when he wasn’t busy beating Cuddles w/ a Gideon Bible.  And Loki and I got inducted into Mama’s Family.

33. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I didn’t get to visit IML/Woof Camp, MAL, Folsom, or MIR or any one of those big kink gatherings this year.  I’d like to try and travel to one big kink con (not counting our usual SELF and Frolicon) each year.

34. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?

A latex bodysuit to go with my hood… and I look really, fucking hot in it!

35. What kept you sane?

Star Wars!

36. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Probably… Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter.  Smart, sexy, and sassy!  My kind of woman!

37. What political issue stirred you the most?

Oh gods…  What can I say about the whole, damn clown car of “candidates” for the Republican presidential nomination?  On the other side is Bernie, whom I adore, who has one of the best records and consistently highest approval ratings of anyone in Congress, takes no corporate money, and who might be one of the few people who can pull this country back from the billionaire oligarchy we’ve become, yet Donald Joke Candidate Trump gets like 40 times the amount of press coverage.  That is screwed the F up!

38. Who did you miss?

Loki and Randolph

39. Who was the best new person you got to know?

Met several new pups and Handlers last year (Justin, Coyote, Sprout, and more), and I also enjoyed getting to know Gator a little better

40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2015:

Okay, so I’ve finally gotten around to taking the “Strength Finder” test my best friend bought for me… like… 6 years ago.  It doesn’t rise to the level of a “life lesson,” but it was interesting.  Ma’am had already taken it.  Kitten is an: Input, Adaptability, Connectedness, Strategic, Intillectitisn.  I have 3 of 5 strengths in common w/ her.  I’m a: Maximizer, Input, Ideation, Intillectitian, Strategic.  As a Maximizer I like to polish things, coach others along, build on strengths rather than focus on weaknesses, I like to give others recognition (while helping them to shine)… editor, show-runner, curator, mentor, coach, teacher…  Instead of being the king, I’d rather be the guy behind the throne giving the king advice.  Input is a big one Kitten and I share.  It’s about collecting and finding new things.  We both like to learn and explore and try new things and make discoveries (new music, a new author, a new restaurant, etc.).  Ideation and Intellectition are very similar.  Basically Ideation is the love of new ideas and Intellectition is the love of deep ideas.  And I think “Strategic” is more what I would call creativity b/c it’s about finding alternative ways to precede and testing different ways of doing things.  That’s what I see as my creative side.

Also not a “life lesson” either, but a particularly exciting new idea I found this year (Input and Ideation!) came from the podcast On Being w/ Krista Tippett, specifically the interview with Helen Fisher on “Sex, Love and Attachment.”  There were two points that I found very interesting.  One was about how, while the divorce rate is going up (and everybody talks about that) it is mostly b/c life expectancy is getting longer.  The average time a marriage lasts hasn’t changed much: about 15 years (about how long it takes a couple to raise a kid).  Second: The nuclear family is kind of an abnormal blip, and it turns out to be inferior to the extended family model: economically, environmentally, and in terms of social-psychology.  It all-around makes more sense to live as an extended family.  Because our society is so much more mobile nowadays (I think the average American moves like every 6 or 8 years or something) we are no longer bound to form an extended family of our literal, biological relations who all live in the same village or neighborhood with us.  The increased mobility has meant that we are ever more seeking out places to live with people and cultures that suit us.  Fisher speculated that this is leading us towards a new model in which we live in what she calls “associations” – or what I would call “chosen family.”  I also conjecture that polyamoury is going to be come more common among millennials…