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From the personality awards glossary:
"This is the kind of user where, when you're spending a night in with them (if you know what we mean), and you suggest a pair of handcuffs, they ask if you want police issue, or fur-lined."

Now I know that "kinky" can mean a number of things, but based on that description and the leather-clad figure in the icon, it seems they're talking about BDSM, in which I have zero experience, and little interest.

I thought maybe it was the simple fact that my wife and I are polyamorous, but she signed up for OkCupid last week, and she has the "Less Kinky" personality award.

In my match questions, I recall numerous questions pertaining to my interest in "alternative" sexual practices, and I usually answer that I'm open-minded and willing to try new things, but I'm not particularly interested in BDSM, and, as I've stated already, no experience with it whatsoever.

And yet this site thinks I'm kinky.

I just hope it doesn't scare anyone off.

Well, I ain't helping the cause no more.

Actually, the whole problem is that I hadn't been helping the cause for quite some time. I can do the math. Assuming I never made quota (which I did, from time to time, but not often enough for it to matter), I got paid minimum wage for working from 1:30 to about 9:30, minus lunch. Seven-and-a-half times six-and-a-half is just under fifty bucks a day. These were calculations I did, and did obsessively throughout the day, because my rent depended on it.

So this meant that I had to bring in just about fifty dollars a day to break even - to be, as John McCain would put it, budget-neutral. Quota was about $100 a day, but it got to the point where I was struggling just to make that fifty, just to not cost the organization money.

If I were working for a company I hated, that would be one thing, but the Democratic National Committee! It nearly killed me, knowing that I'd been out there for weeks because I was trying to help, but every day on the field, I actually cost the DNC money - twenty to fifty dollars a day.

It was especially disheartening because my friends and coworkers were doing the same work, sometimes on the opposite side of the same street, and pulling in $200 to $400 a night.

I had considered quitting for this reason, only a few days before I got fired. In retrospect, I really should have quit, because now I've been fired, which looks bad on my resume.

I found a new job relatively quickly, but it's only temp work. Which means that I'm still not free from the burden of the search. For now I'm just glad to have something, especially something that pays so much better than the DNC job, but I need something slightly more permanent, and I mean soon, because job-hunting is demoralizing and exhausting, and I'd like to stop.

So I'm a canvasser for the Democratic National Committee now. That means I've been going door-to-door talking to people and asking for contributions. Many of the people I talk to, regardless of their political leanings, are quite eager to get rid of me, so they'll say what they think I'm looking to hear, regardless of whether it's true. I know people lie; it's a fact of life. The frustrating thing is that most of these people don't actually say things that will get me to leave.

Often, they say "Yeah, I'm going to vote for him, so you don't have to worry about me." Well, yes I do, because, to put it bluntly, I'm out for your money, not your vote. Not to mention that by saying "him," you're completely ignoring the other Democrats. I'm out here for Rick Noriega, Donna Howard, Larry Joe Dougherty, and Democrats running in other states, like Alaska's Mark Begich, Colorado's Mark Udall, and of course, Minnesota's Al Franken.

That means that even if we already have your vote, I still want to talk to you. In fact, especially if we already have your vote. That said, there's five things you can say to get me off your doorstep in a hurry.

1.) "I'm a Republican." cf. "This is a Republican household," "We're Republicans," "We're voting the other way," and my personal favorite, "I wouldn't vote for Barack Obama if he were the last man on Earth."

Yes, If you're Republican, I'm going to leave you alone. I'm not out to change anyone's mind. I'm out for money, and the odds of getting money from a Republican are staggeringly small, so I'd just as soon not waste my time.

2.) "I'm not a citizen." cf. "Ho habla Ingles," other language variants.

If you have a green card, I'm still going after you, and hard. If not, say, if you're just here as a student or just visiting, then you're not legally allowed to participate, and all I can do is wish you a good day, and move on to the next house.

3.) "I'm a lobbyist attourney."

Yep, it's illegal for us to accept contributions from lobbyists this year.

4.) "My workplace prohibits me from making political contributions."

Now, I think this is stupid, but some people have jobs (i.e. with a newspaper that takes its pledge to impartiality a bit too seriously) that prohibit them from making contributions. Since no contributions are anonymous, and it's easy to trace who has and has not made contributions, these people stand to get in trouble if I push too hard, so I'd just as soon leave it at that.

5.) "I've already donated $28,500 to the Democratic National Committee this year." cf. "I'm already maxed out."

If you've already hit the federal maximum this year, I can't legally accept any more from you, so kudos. Still, I've only ever talked to one person who's said this, and even then I'm not sure whether he was telling the truth.

Of course, there is a sixth answer...

6.) "Sure, I'll help out!" cf. "Okay, how much do you need," "I'll go get my checkbook," and "Is two hundred dollars enough?"

Making a contribution is simple, and most people can afford something. If you stand there at the door to your own home and tell me that you don't even have ten dollars to spare for the DNC, there'd better be a FOR SALE sign in front of that house, because otherwise, I'll know you're lying (bear in mind that we take checks and credit cards in addition to cash, so it's not like you can say you don't have any on you). Filling out the form takes about thirty seconds, and it's not like you're supporting a panhandler or something. Your money goes toward helping candidates who are going to change the social and political landscape of our country. And if you're not a Republican, then surely you understand how important that is.

So next time you see one our friends in the blue t-shirts at your door, open your hearts, open your wallets, and make a contribution. And if you can't do that, then at least have the decency to provide the right excuse without slamming the door in our faces.

A thought occured to me the other day that scared the pants off me. John McCain has been awfully cavalier in the face of all the glowing Obama press. I'm wondering if anyone else has wondered whether he might be evil enough to arrange to have his own son killed in action right before the election?

*shudder*

Anyway. There's been a lot of political buzzing lately, what with Ted Stevens being indicted, and all this controversy surrounding the Justice Department. Some of my friends (who are, almost without exception, even more liberal than I am) are actually getting excited about seeing some justice for a change.

Two little alliterative words, kids: Presidential Pardon. If they were indicted any sooner, they wouldn't be able to keep doing what they've been doing. If they were indicted any later, they wouldn't be found guilty in time for Bush to pardon them before he leaves office. No justice today.

Sorry to be a downer.

By way of explaining my job, let's talk about my Wednesdays. They're the worst day of the week by far. Partly because of the disheartening effect, the night before, of setting my alarm clock for 2:30 A.M.

Two -- effing -- thirty.

Because Wednesday is, as of current, the only day of the week I need to do this, I can't even imagine falling asleep at an appropriate hour Tuesday night (what would that be? 7:00? 8:00?). I generall crawl into bed sometime between 10:00 and 10:30, but sleeping is a joke.

So I crawl out of bed at 2:30. Try to eat a quick breakfast and get dressed without waking Allyson, who winds up waking up anyway. I tiptoe through the living room with the lights off, so I don't wake up the degus, and off I go. I'm usually on time for my 3:00 shift, but the head baker, Prasad, is usually a little late. He comes in, says two of the only English words he knows, "Good morning," and lets us in.

Prasad is a short Indian man with salt-and-pepper hair and a withering mustache. He looks miserable most of the time, but I can't blame him - he clocks into work at 3:00 on weekdays and 4:30 on weekends, and so far as I know, hasn't had a day off in months. He still doesn't know how to communicate most orders to me, so the first half-hour consists almost entirely of him doing all the work. Three bags of dough mix, three cups of yeast, eight cups of water, four cups of milk, a little more water, which, for whatever reason, he doesn't measure...

Anyway. Eventually, we get to packing the meat kolaches. We usually have sheets of dough from the day before already in the fridge. I'm not entirely sure why they must go in the fridge, but even when the dough is fresh and is definitely going to be used before closing, the dough must go in the fridge. We don't cut the sheets unless they're cold.

Anyway. We spread out the cold sheets of dough, and then use two folded baking sheets as guidelines to cut along with a pizza roller. Most of the kolaches use a sheet that's been folded into 1/4 its original width, but for some of them, we use one that's been folded into 1/3 its original width. Then Prasad tells me what kind of kolache I'm making, and I put the appropriate filling inside and roll it up. I can't do this myself because he decides which order to make the kolaches in, based on some combination of the day of the week, the cycle of the moon, and his horoscope. Or he just makes it up as he goes along, and is too much of a control freak to let me choose. It's hard to tell.

Around 6:00, one of my fellow employees gets to the store, usually just a little after the sun rises. If I haven't done so already, this other employee will take seven baking sheets and write, with meticulous regard for their order, the types of different meat kolaches on display. Sausage and cheese gets its own sheet, as does sausage, cheese and jalapeño, and ham and swiss. Elgin and Elgin with jalapeño share a sheet. Ranchero and Italian share a sheet. And crammed onto one sheet together in the top-center are plain sausage; spinach, cheese and mushroom; and sausage cheese and sauerkraut.

We generally take our first customer around ten minutes before the official opening time; business is slow enough that we really can't afford to turn away anyone.

Some of the customers are real idiots, but that's another story for another entry.

If I've been baking since 3:00 A.M., I usually get to go home at 9:30 or 10:00. Sometimes, I'm the one lucky enough to come in at 6:00. In which case I'm stuck there till closing. We do pretty steady business till about 10:00, and from then till closing at 2:30, we usually get fewer than a dozen customers. I'll sit around, abusing the free wi-fi or doing today's crossword in the paper. Then, around 1:30 or so, we start filling out the closing-time paperwork, which closely resembles a tax form.

Did you know that we're legally obligated to throw out any kolaches that sit out for more than four hours? If there's any left at closing (and there will be), we take our pick to take home, and throw away the rest. This is always sort of depressing; isn't there something useful we can do with the leftovers? Not really.

In a few weeks, they'll be opening the other half of the shop, which will be a sandwich shop/bistro type place. That will change the the dynamic dramatically. How, I don't know, but it will. And they're still hiring, though as far as I know, I'm the only applicant who's even been contacted. Which is kind of weird, I guess.

Allyson tells me that the average graduate from my college takes three months to find a job. I found one in less than two weeks. I don't like it, but it's something. Guess I'm just lucky that way.

Since the mere fact that I'm listed as "married" and also "available" on my profile will probably turn some heads, not to mention the fact that I talk a little about my wife on my profile, it probably makes sense to write a little about our arrangement here, so as to demystify it, and maybe make me look a little less creepy to the skeptics out there.

Allyson and I have been polyamorous for going on six months now. If you've never heard of polyamory, just pretend I said "we're in an open marriage," even though that doesn't strictly mean quite the same thing.

See, we're not swingers. We don't sleep around. We don't approve of sex-only relationships or one-night stands. For us, polyamory is not just about having sex with people outside of the marriage (though we do allow it); it's about allowing each other to connect romantically with other people too. Just because I have her, and she has me, doesn't mean we can't be attracted to other people, nor that we have to miss out on something as beautiful and fulfilling as love, be it the love we have and will always have for each other, or the excitement of new love.

But it's not just that, either. Allyson and I both recognize that we have needs the other can't fill. Or would rather not have to. I like going out and being social - Allyson hates it. So if I have a girlfriend who likes going out and meeting people or being social, then it benefits all three of us, and, consequently, the marriage.

If, against all odds, you think you might be interested in me romantically, you'll probably meet Allyson at some point. And when you do, don't pretend that our friendship is something it's not. I'm not hiding anything from her. And do try to get along. I mean, I don't think she'd hate anyone I'd ever be interested in, but if you can't get along, that certainly doesn't bode well for our relationship, does it?

Does that kind of make sense?