Even as a little kid I did not sympathize with Goldilocks in the classic fairy tale. There you have the bear family with their neat little house: each family member has a favorite chair, their own bed, their own special bowl for food. And they’ve just taken a walk in the woods while they wait for their dinner to cool down, and this rude girl barges into their house, messes with all of their stuff, breaks a piece of furniture, eats a third of the food, and then decides to go to sleep in one of the beds of this house that she’s broken into.
That wasn’t all that annoyed me. I was also annoyed at how critical Goldilocks was of everything. “This chair is too hard!” “This chair is too soft!” et cetera, et cetera.
But while I can’t recall ever having barged into someone’s house and messed with their property, I do have something in common with Goldilocks: sometimes I want things exactly the way I want them, and I find myself grousing over things being inferior to what I want—sometimes in contradictory ways.
A whole bunch of people joined us for a birthday dinner. I’m the weirdo in the stocking cap waving at the camera. (Click to embiggen)So I had a good birthday.
On the day itself, Michael left two presents for me to find while I was getting ready to go to work: a polo shirt with the Tardis embroidered on it, and the War Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. There was also a very sweet card that made me a bit teary-eyeed. He knows me so well! When I got home from work there was a much sillier card, and two more presents: a string of Tardis lights (we might end up doing another science fiction themed Christmas tree, at this rate), and in a plot twist I didn’t see coming, a pair of Princess Bride pint beer glasses.
It’s a sonic screwdriver! Need a lot of shelves put up?Then we walked up to my favorite restaurant for dinner. As often happens there, they gave me extra full glasses of wine. Both of my favorite waitresses were there. I had learned last year when we had my birthday dinner there that one of the waitresses has her birthday the day before mine, so I got to wish her a happy birthday. Even though I didn’t have room for dessert, they insisted I take home a slice of chocolate cake.
I had invited a bunch of our friends to meet us at AFK Tavern (where so many of our group outings happen) on Saturday afternoon. Since I needed to make reservations before everyone had time to let me know whether they would be there, I had to guess. We wound up with three more people than my upper-end guesstimate, so you will notice in the first picture we’re a bit squeezed in.
I had a lot of fun. This was the first time at AFK for Julie, Julie’s Mike, Jon, Sheryl, Chuck, and Mark, I believe. I only had three Fluttershy Mai Tais, plus a pint of Swill (which is actually a really delicious ale).
We were there about four hours.
I got a bunch of presents. A cool plant (which is going into the office, I think; I’ve had a window for over a year and keep saying I need a plant or two, so here goes!), a set of Tardis & Dalek salt & pepper shakers, the Firefly edition of Clue (which I didn’t even know existed!), a Seahawks stocking cap, two pairs of dark maroon/purple fuzzy socks (in men’s size!), iTunes gift card, not to mention some really cool cards.
My big present from Michael is still on its way. After years of me being unsuccessful at finding a Smith-Corona Silent-Super model manual typewriter in pink with white keys (sometimes called the “Easter Edition”) that was in at a price I could afford or had not already sold to someone else, he found one. It’s not in pristine condition, but the place that sells it does a lot of manual typewriter restorations and has a good reputation, so when they say it is in working order, that they’ve cleaned and serviced it, et cetera, I believe them.
I had a great time. I was so glad that so many folks could join us.
Ray unpacking after we moved into our second apartment.If Ray had lived, today would be his fiftieth birthday. Unfortunately, Ray died when he was 33. I try to maintain a good perspective on it. A bit more than three years before, the doctors had said he had maybe 6 months to 2 years to live. He’d beaten their expectations. It hadn’t been pleasant for him. There had been surgery, chemotherapy, and various side effects of various drugs.
When we’d met, he’d been this tall, thin (skinny, really) grinning goofball with a mop of curly hair usually dyed in multiple colors. As his illness had destroyed his lung tissue and caused painful lesions to erupt on his bones, making movement ever more difficult and painful, he’d gained weight and lost all that manic energy. The chemo didn’t make all of his hair fall out, but it got very, very thin, and he hated how it looked. The pain had slaved his sleep schedule to his pain pills. During that last year he would take his pain pills, wait for them to kick in enough to let him sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up and try to occupy himself for about four hours until he could take his next dose, sleep for two more hours, wake up and wait, et cetera.
Some mornings I wake up, it’s dark, the clock radio may have started playing NPR’s Morning Edition, which means the alarm will be going off soon. Which does not fill me with joy, because I’m never quite ready to wake up and get out of bed.
But about then my husband comes back into the bedroom. He goes into work earlier than I do, needing to leave before my alarm even goes off. Anyway, he walks into the room, he may turn on the lights because he’s looking for something, or he may just need to grab one thing. The important thing is he walks into the room, and a fun thing happens.
I remember that I’m married to that man.
It’s not like I have amnesia or something, but there’s a part of me that is always pleasantly surprised to remember that I’m not alone. Not only am I not alone, but I have the best husband in the world. He’s smart. He’s funny. He’s sweet. He’s cute. He’s sexy. He’s very practical. One of my friends once described Michael as the most capable person he’s ever known. He can fix things—all kinds of things!—and he likes doing it. He can take a pile of fresh vegetables and turn it into several very neat piles of very nicely sliced vegetables in the amount of time a normal person would spend deciding which knife to use. He cooks. He cleans. He puts up with me (not exactly the easiest person to get along with). He puts up with all my weird hobbies and projects. He’s cheerful, even after living with me for over 16 years. His response to any disaster is not, “how can I fix this,” but rather, “I have a plan to deal with this.”
And did I mention that he’s sexy?
As if having this wonderful man in my life wasn’t already more good fortune than I deserve, my life has also been graced with a large assortment of wonderful friends. It’s hard to know where to begin, but here goes:Continue reading Feeling lucky→
I often quote the study completed by the Centers for Disease control in the early 90s whose conclusions included the line, “Americans would rather admit to being heroin addicts than being bisexual.” So I am hardly the first person to notice that bisexual visibility is fraught. As one friend said, “My orientation is bisexual, but my temperament is monogamous, then I fell in love with a man, and there’s just no natural moment to mention to your future in-laws, ‘oh, by the way, I’m bisexual.'” Later, when we were both members of the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Chorus, she said the chorus finally gave her a way bring it up with many people as she would try to sell tickets to the concerts. “No, you don’t have to be gay or lesbian to sing in the group, we’ve had a few straight members. But I’m not one of them.”
Most of the bi people I know (or I should say, most of the people I happen to know are bisexual) have wound up in long-term opposite-sex relationships. Just as a matter of statistics, there are more straight people, so the number of potential partners who happen to be opposite sex is much larger than the number who are same-sex. Some bi people, like my husband, end up in long-term relationships with same-sex partners. That same CDC study I mentioned earlier found that about one-third of people who self-identify as gay are actually bisexual, but keep quiet about it.
Because society—even folks who think of themselves as enlightened—assumes that people will settle down as part of a couple, when you do get into a long term relationship, colleagues and acquaintances assume they can infer your orientation. If you wind up with an opposite-sex partner and they are aware of any of your previous same-sex relationships, they assume it was an experimental phase. If you wind up with a same-sex partner and they are aware of any of your opposite-sex relationships, they assume you were in denial.
And gay people like me who actually did try to convince ourselves that maybe we weren’t really gay but actually bi don’t help your cause. Because there was a time when I described myself as bi, and because many gay people do that as part of their own coming out process, a lot of people assume that’s what everyone who describes themselves as bi is doing. For which I apologize.
I do know that the only way to decrease the stigma of being bisexual is to be out. Just as the only thing that has made people warm to the notion of gay and lesbian rights was for more and more of us to be out to our families, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, that’s what it’s going to take for bisexuals. Yes, it’s scary. But being open and honest is very liberating.
Because my church, teachers, other relatives, and even a cop (after the incident of the broken collar bone and gash that required stitches) told me that sometimes a father has to go to extremes to make his son a man.
Because when you are raised from birth by your abuser, you think bruises, fractures, and lacerations are normal.
Because my church, other relatives, and even movies and TV told me that standing up for myself was being rebellious.
Because if my story didn’t match his version of events, I would be hurt worse.
Because if I got away, he’d still be able to hurt my mom and my little sister.
Why I Left:
Because the judge hearing my parents’ divorce case actually asked me which parent I wanted to live with, and why.
When I set my goals for the year, I said I’d do regular check-ins. We’re nearly two weeks into a new month, so I ought to check in.
I tried to set very concrete steps for achieving my goals. Inspired by a friend’s suggestion, I tried to identify a better habit to replace each bad habit. So how am I doing?Continue reading Goals? What goals?→
Meetville.comA while back someone objected to my post where I said that, in this day and age, if the first thought that comes to mind when thinking about a gay neighborhood is “AIDS,” that indicates a certain level of ignorance and bigotry. The reasoning presented in the objection boiled down to, “maybe I’m not as well-informed as you are, but that doesn’t mean I’m bigoted. I don’t hate anyone!”
First, I didn’t say hatred, I said bigotry. Bigotry is formally defined as “obstinate and unreasonable adherence to an opinion or idea.” Depending on the context it can shade into narrow-minded intolerance, or blind and excessive zeal, as well as dismissiveness of other ideas. But the central meaning, and the meaning I intended was that “unreasonable adherence to an idea.”
I’ve mentioned before that I used to be active on Queernet, which was run as both a Usenet group and a mailing list. And because I posted and/or replied to other people’s posts on there a lot, I more than occasionally got hate mail. Because even back in late 80s/early 90s ultraconservative haters trolled the net looking for people to spew vitriol at. And one of those trolls was a member of the Westboro Baptist Church clan, usually logging in as Ben Phelps. And every single hate mail that he sent to any of us on that list included some reference to butt sex.
Even when he was yelling at bisexual women, lesbians, or people who identified as straight allies…
…and a cold cloth for my head, please.One of my biggest gripes about my body’s particular hay fever symptoms is that often I can’t tell the difference between worse than usual hay fever days and coming down with a cold.
This year’s hay fever season started out really awful in March and April. So bad that I had been bracing myself for a horrid summer. While I had almost non-stop mild hay fever symptoms for the entirety of May, June, July, and August, I only had moderately bad days every now and then, only really bad once or twice.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all moderately bad. Then I had trouble sleeping Sunday night/Monday morning. Thank goodness the third time I woke up to get a drink of water (I always wake up thirsty several times in the middle of the night on bad hay fever days… but also when I have a cold), I became conscious enough to take some extra decongestant. Otherwise my sinus headache would be much, much worse than it is.
My husband is on an earlier work schedule for summer, so I’ve tended to get up when he leaves, which is before my second alarm. This morning I barely woke up when he kissed me good-bye. I had trouble getting out of bed to stagger to the alarm clock to turn it off for the second alarm. And similarly had difficulty staggering across the room to turn off the third alarm.
While I was trying to force myself to wake up enough to take a guess as to how many hours it had been since I took the decongestant (so I could know when I could take something else) I looked up the pollen count.
It’s low. Very, very low. And has been for the last couple of days.
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