Welcome to The Honeypot!

Let's get into it.

Friends, Romans, Sweet Sweet Pals- I’m over the moon to be back here with you! Welcome to all of the new readers, and welcome back to all of you old friends (more info on Honeypot history here). As I write this I am dehydrating approximately one hundred million orange slices to make into a dried orange garland for our home’s holiday outfit. In anticipation of this project, I asked my local Buy Nothing group if anyone had an excess of oranges they were trying to get rid of (California is wack!), and a neighbor said yes! how many would I like? I said that I would take as many as they could spare, so now I have two ovens’ worth of garlands and an excess of oranges all my own. Any ideas on what I should make? A citrus menorah? A wintry simmer pot? A post on Buy Nothing offering up my stash? Only time will tell, but I will also keep you posted.

Before we get back into our regularly scheduled programming- and we’re going to have so much fun in here I swear to god- I just need to acknowledge that the road! back! was quite! a difficult one!! Although making and sharing something is never easy, I don’t think that I’ve ever been quite as fearful as I have been in this post-pandemic landscape. The stagnation of lockdown gave my inner fear goblin a fertile environment to build the case that life was simply safer inside; and not just inside of my home, but inside of myself. With enough time and space, she was able to illuminate for me just how scary my old life had been: Doing an improv show not knowing what the performance will entail? Terrifying! Memorizing lines for a full-length play? Literally impossible! Sharing tender pieces of myself in the hopes that they will resonate with someone and also because without those connections I’m not sure what’s the point of it all? Like sky diving but with vulnerability, and the same mortality rate (high)!!! These pursuits, which had felt like breathing to me, were now sequestered across a gulf that she implored me not to cross. My fear goblin knew me better than anyone, and even though I was generally sad and lacking a sense of purpose, I felt so grateful that she was keeping me safe.

But now it’s been more than three years, and my god, I’m missing me. The doors are opening, the world is waking up again, and legally you can only say, I used to really be somebody, to your boyfriend so many times before you are thrown in Dramatic Jail. So I’m talking to my therapist, and family, and friends. I’m sitting with my fear goblin and saying, I know you’re scared. I know you’re trying to protect me. But the life I want to live is an out-loud life and who knows, maybe you’ll even like it out there too. And then, in my own time, I’m making moves. Because there’s only so long that you can negotiate with fear before you just have to show it a new path forward. While I haven’t exactly gotten a thumbs up from my goblin, I feel glad to be guiding us both through the changes and saying we’re here! We’re doing it! We’re trying it all one step at a time. So thank you all for joining me (us) on this journey. This relaunch has been a big bravery challenge, but on the other side of that gulf, I know, is community. I’m so excited to discover it with you.

Two Partners & A Two Flat

Jessie Cadle was the inaugural contributor in The Honeypot 1.0, so it only seemed right to bring her in to initiate round two! Professionally, she’s a creative director turned creative strategist at Pinterest. Personally, she loves to go on long walks, take beginner jazz dance classes and read lots of books.

I have two romantic partners, and we just bought a two flat house together. For those of you unfamiliar with two flat houses, it’s like a duplex but stacked. An apartment on top and an apartment underneath. 

For those of you unfamiliar with two romantic partners, so are most people in the Midwest where we live (even in a progressive queer city like Chicago). Polyamory, and our unique version of it, where I have two long term partners who do not date each other, exists without a lot of examples, road maps or role models. And that is such magical, hard and gorgeous life to be building. So I wanted to share what it looks and feels like to me: 

Having two partners in a two flat feels like waking up in bed with my husband, who I have been with for 12 years. He is slow to wake on Sunday mornings, so I amble up the stairs to where my girlfriend lives, who I have been with for 2 years. It’s not our night but I know she is awake, groggy on the couch, book in hand, glasses askance. I give her a kiss and we both read our books for a while before I go back downstairs and have coffee with my husband. We read the New York Times on the front porch, which is our favorite thing to do, while my husband tells me a fake story that I fully believe until I realize it is an extended bit. I really don’t know how many facts rattle around in my brain that are just his extended bits. I hope I never find out. 

Having two partners in a two flat is my girlfriend making too much bean soup (she likes to buy them dry and cook them for hours on the stove — I never thought such people existed, with this kind of slow burn patience for things). Because of the soup excess she invites my husband over for dinner. The three of us sit around the dining room table that my girlfriend and I found at a second hand store a year ago. We didn’t even know how we would live together at the time but the table felt like a promise. An intention. And now here I am eating bean soup with both of my partners around it. I am mostly tired and they carry the conversation. And here I thought I was the glue. 

Having two partners in a two flat is having the same fight about soft butter twice in my life. Not all soft butter is Country Crock! Some of it is just olive oil and butter! Who decided on the supremacy of stick butter? Justice for spreadable butter! Long may it reign in both refrigerators!

Having two partners in a two flat is expensive. It’s deciding how many things it is reasonable to have two of. Memory foam pillows? Of course. Fancy milk frothers? Well actually yes I should be able to have a delicious cup of coffee regardless of where I am sleeping without having to go downstairs upstairs. Couches? Yes but god damn it should be illegal to have to buy two nice couches. How do rich people afford two residences, I find myself thinking. Am I the rich person with two residences? 

Having two partners in a two flat is making peace, or at least a temporary truce, with the constant swirl of anxiety that I will fuck this up and somehow lose them both. That I am not worthy of two people’s love, especially not the love of two incredibly charismatic & hot people (I am a greedy bisexual monster!). That I am constantly letting one of them down. That half of the nights of the week is not enough (even though my husband has a girlfriend of his own who stays over a few nights a week, and my girlfriend loves having time to herself or out & about with her community). That we will become yet another anecdote about polyamory that started out so well then really went downhill (do you know it? Everyone seems to and it’s their favorite thing to share when they find out I am polyamorous. Not frightening at all. Very chill in fact. Not my worst nightmare personified or the reason we waited so long to try this version of life we knew was right for us. In fact, let’s hear it again.) Yeah, so, the anxiety still exerts a lot of control.

Having two partners in a two flat is brand new to me. I have been doing it one month. ONE MONTH! Think of the fights we will have. The dreams we will share. The life we will build here. But even from the start, having two partners in a two flat felt like home. Like I was living a life that was fully mine. Rather, ours.

I hope we get to have you over sometime. There are four porches and three of us. I think you’ll get along with at least one. 

Lime Lady

My friend Claire McFadden and I have often been accountability buddies for each other, à la “I am declaring an arbitrary deadline for a creative task I’ve been avoiding-won’t you be a pal and hit me in the back of the head if I don’t do it?” Months ago my task was to finish Honeypot prep, and hers was to finish editing “a video about a lime.” In an unprecedented (for us) turn of events, neither of us could quite bring ourselves to complete them. And then this week, without discussing it, we both launched those projects! Isn’t that just nuts? Sometimes it’s no time, sometimes it’s flow time, and I’ve said this for centuries now.

Claire’s resulting creation is one of my absolute favorite things I’ve seen recently- I just can’t stop thinking about it! So without further ado, Lime Lady:

Are you crying? I was a little bit! Now please, I implore you, behold her behind-the-scenes masterpiece and get a glimpse into her beautiful mind:

I am simply obsessed. To keep tabs on Claire’s projects, you can join me in subscribing to her brand-new newsletter, The Claire McFadden Monthly. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Squint for Winter

Don’t get me wrong, I love living in Los Angeles- I get to have lemon trees in my yard, hear about insane, first-hand celebrity gossip that makes me feel like life is a video game where we know all of the characters, and it’s almost always cute jacket season. But from Halloween to New Years, an 80 degree day can start to feel…disrespectful. I’m an East Coast girl trying to get in the holiday zone, after all! Sweating in the bright sun on the way to Thanksgiving dinner just isn’t it! So the other (blissfully chilly) night, I put together a playlist to help me tap into the feeling of the season:

If you’d like to replicate the experience of my happy evening, I would recommend listening while making this cabbage soup- I subbed red cabbage and purple sweet potatoes because that’s what I had in my kitchen, and the result was a delicious, soul-warming, bright purple dinner. Do you have a favorite soup you’re making this winter? I’m always on the hunt!

That’s all folks! I hope you have a wonderful week. Please feel free to share with anyone who you think might be interested, and find out more information about submitting your own piece to The Honeypot here.

You’re doing great, fear goblins be damned!

xx Olivia

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