cultofthe9s

Crying Revisited

2006-06-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

Things that have made me cry in the past month:

· Shrek 2, shared by a very sweet 8-year-old boy on an airplane from Seattle to Detroit

· Re-reading my post on how amazing life is

· United Church of Christ on Alki, during the sermon and feeling truly welcomed by an “Open and Affirming” congregation

· Fremont Solstice Parade, as 200 women marched past belly-dancing

· Seattle Storm game, when the crowd applauded breast cancer survivors

· Seattle Storm game, when the crowd cheered for the team and they won by 30 points

· Seattle Pride Parade, as Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

· Seattle Pride Parade, as Dykes on Bikes drove by

· Seattle Pride Parade, as American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER) marched by

· Today, while writing about my beautiful girlfriend

I talked to Dianne about it in therapy. I almost started crying when I spoke of it. But not in a bad way, like I said before. I am not sad when I am crying, generally speaking. I am moved. Literally, to tears.

Dianne nodded knowingly and said, “Ah, yes. Heart crying.”

“What does that mean? Talk to me about this ‘heart crying.’”

She proceeded to tell me that my heart is incredibly open right now. She told me that there was a reason I cried while sitting next to an 8-year-old. Because 8-year-olds have open hearts. They have not yet been taught to close up and wall over and protect protect protect. It makes sense that the times that I’ve choked up have been in large groups where there is a great deal of energy moving. The energetic power of 200 beautiful (not necessarily in the traditionally accepted way) women marching down the street was almost too much for me to handle. When crowds applaud, I almost burst into tears. It’s like these unexpected bursts of literal energy coming from people around me. And I’m out there open, exposed, and vulnerable to it – just riding the current of my own emotional river. Dianne pointed to the fact that I am finally with someone who sees me truly as I am and that this is safe for me. Certainly safe enough for me to cry freely with her or to giggle with her about the fact that I’m crying…AGAIN.

I am not a crier, see. I never have been, other than approximately once per quarter, when everything would just come bursting out of me in this hours-long gush of hiccup-sobbing that exhausted me. My dad is a crier. I remember watching him cry at movies or television dramas or even during church at weddings or baptisms. I remember rolling my eyes, as my mother had done before me and likely her mother before her. I remember judging him – how un“man”ly. Or something. Me. Ew.

Now I have a whole new take on the thing. I am, in fact, amazed at my dad’s openness and vulnerability to the energy that flows around him. Why shouldn’t he cry at momentous spiritual occasions in the life of individuals or the church? Why not allow himself to be moved to tears by truly moving and beautiful things? Kudos to him!

So I am just going with it here, folks. Be warned: I cry these days. I am open-hearted right now and many random things can cause a surge of powerful emotion in me. (I swear it’s something even animals can sense. As Faith and Chase and I were walking back to the car in the midst of the Pride Parade today, I glanced down at a dog. The dog immediately looked at me and locked eyes with me. It moved its body around and pulled against its leash just staring at me with these eyes. It was really intense. Faith later told me I should have stopped, but I wasn’t sure I could have handled it if I had. Of course, perhaps this is something I’ve possessed for a while. I’m brought back to one of the more awful nights of my life when I hit a cat with my car. The cat ran under a deck that was closed off such that I (and no one else) could get to it to help it. And then all of a sudden, this fatally injured cat dragged itself out from under the porch and across the yard to lie down and exhale its final breath in the middle of an open yard next to me. This cat felt safe enough, for whatever reason, to allow me near to it in its death, instead of hiding out and dying alone like most cats prefer to do. It was powerful. And it’s making me cry right now.)

I think I need to be careful with myself with this. I have not yet learned to open and close this part of me. I need to know how to protect myself for times when the energy around me is not so good. I think I need to avoid crowds when I am feeling energetically depleted. I think I need to (and will) achieve more of a balance than what I am currently experiencing. This sort of heart-openness is somewhat new to me, or at least this experience of it is. But it’s sometimes nice to feel so alive and in tune with the things happening around me. And so long as Faith can just put her arms around me and kiss me on the cheek or forehead or wherever and still love me, even in the midst of my tears, I’ll make it through just fine.

(Bi) Pride, or Why I Am Completely In Love with My Girlfriend

2006-06-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

I am bisexual. I don’t really like the term and I generally call myself “queer” instead, but more than any other commonly accepted “identity,” I am bisexual. I am probably more bisexual than most, as I have been so consistent in dating both biological sexes in equal parts that my dear friend Ali once commented, “I find great comfort in how you always date one then the other then the other then the other” and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, Ali is unique in her comfort with this.

It’s not that easy being bi. I think I’ve written before on these pages that the fact that I’ve dated women is just a turn-on to be objectified by heterosexual men. And the fact that I’ve dated men is a threat to many in the lesbian community. And though I’m placing blame outside of myself on this one, I have to be honest and admit that those thoughts have been internalized.

There are times that I will mention my attraction to women as a turn-on for a heterosexual man. And there are even more times that I feel embarrassed admitting to a lesbian woman that I am attracted to men. When I am in the heterosexual community, I feel objectified; when I am in the homosexual community, I don’t feel “lesbian” enough. The heterosexual community in general doesn’t think much about Pride. The homosexual community goes overboard with Pride. And the bisexual community often seems to be left on the outskirts, struggling even to be proud.

Sure, we’re included in the now famous “LGBT,” but we seem to sit on the sidelines. We can “pass” so life must be so much easier for us. In many ways, that’s entirely true. I can walk down the streets in the deep south with relatively little fear or self-consciousness. I know “straight” lingo and have walked the walk. I am very ingrained in “straight” culture so it is easy and comfortable for me to exist in that realm. But there’s the other half of me that finds my connection with women to be so beautiful and mind-blowing that I don’t want to leave that out of my life. So I walk the line. Of course, walking the line brings criticism of being unable to choose one or the other, or of being a sex addict, or a pervert, or whatever. There seems to be criticism from both sides and it’s difficult to take.

Having recently passed my one-year anniversary with Faith, things continue to be interesting. My heterosexual friends seem to talk around the topic of my “former” heterosexual interests, as if Faith has no idea. Hell, there are times that I try to keep it to myself, for fear that she would feel threatened or upset or something. Just a couple of weeks ago, Faith and I hosted a birthday party. At the party, there was Faith and me, one heterosexual couple, and one single heterosexual woman. Once again, there was a bit of an awkward moment when the heterosexuals at the party were all reflecting on the fact that I had previously dated a man. My dear friend then said something like, “So that must have just been a phase. Are you over that now?” Before I could even respond, my beautiful girlfriend jumped in with, “Angela will never be over her interest in men. That’s just a part of who she is.”

I don’t think she has any idea how freeing it is to hear her say it. Faith knows my past and she allows it to be my past without any feelings of guilt or unbelonging. It makes me me and she loves me. She loves me.

I have been missing men lately and that has been hard for me. I’ve tried to just deal with it myself and not address it with Faith, again out of fear or out of an attempt to protect her from that. This has caused a lot of self-reflection and a lot of pondering what it means more personally to be bisexual. There is no such thing as a bisexual relationship. How, then, do bisexual people achieve a happy and fulfilling relationship with just one person? I have no interest in being with any other woman. Faith is my girl, through and through. The way she sees me – the real me – and takes care of me and loves me unconditionally is more than I could have ever asked for. Her affection for me and the safety I feel with her is enough to move me to tears. But what do I do with this whole other piece of what makes me me? Is it just supposed to disappear into nothingness? That seems unlikely and unreasonable and I’m not willing to expect such impossibilities from myself. I don’t know the answers, so I am working through it.

I’ve been working through it completely by myself for a while now, with only a few vague conversations with friends. Recently, Faith and I were walking the Discovery Park loop trail and it came up somehow. For the first time, I talked openly with her about the feelings and thoughts I had been having. I told her that I feel sad about losing this part of me and that I’m scared of that, but that I just love her so much. It was hard for me to say to her. I don’t know that I would want to hear it from my partner. But Faith, true to form and beautiful and amazing as could be, simply assured me that she completely understood and that it was fine that I’m going through this process and that she loves me. I can not believe the security that she feels in this relationship, as if there’s some higher power that has brought us together and she trusts that and trusts me and trusts her own good judgment. Her security helps me so much to be who I am and to communicate openly with her about it. It’s truly amazing.

This weekend is Pride in Seattle. Marching in the parade last night was a community group of bisexual people. I cheered my heart out as I stood there holding hands with my lesbian girlfriend.

I am bisexual. And – with the help of a supportive girlfriend, family, and community – I’m proud of it.

MySpace

2006-06-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

I recently succumbed to the MySpace bug. Having noticed that everyone seems to be abandoning their blogger blogs to start blogging at MySpace, and wanting to take full advantage of the website to read and comment on my friends’ posts, I signed on. I created a MySpace account and took some time filling out parts of my profile. Knowing just a portion of how many people are on MySpace, I made an effort to make my “interests” appear “witty” and “successful.” I’ve visited my MySpace page every day since its inception, and I still don’t get it.

First, just the whole point. Okay, okay – I have begun to understand the amusement (not to mention the time-wasting factor) of doing little searches for people you haven’t thought of in years to try to glimpse what they’ve become. And it is fun to see pictures and read blurbs and observe how others have tried to appear “witty” and “successful.” But I have been continually frustrated by not getting enough information. Great – so I can see people’s interests. And perhaps sometimes I am lucky enough to see their job title. Or maybe they do keep a meaningful blog that fills me in just a little bit. But mostly, people seem so vapid through the lens of their MySpace accounts. Maybe they are; maybe they’re not, but the MySpace layout seems to minimize the thought and emphasize the pictures and short comments from MySpace "friends" who may or may not be real friends.

Second, I have no earthly clue how to navigate around MySpace. I just discovered today that I have an inbox and a “friends request” list (with the mere click of a mouse button, I get to decide who gets to be my “friend” and who doesn’t). I still am not sure quite how to access them. I seem to just happen upon various things on MySpace. And perhaps that’s part of the fun.

It’s different, blogging on MySpace. Here on blogger, I remain mostly anonymous. Only a handful of people know that I’m here, and those who would stumble on my blog by accident would not likely trace the blog to me. Considering the relative intimacy of this blog, I take some comfort in my anonymity. However, I keep thinking that the best part of MySpace is reading through the blog entries and peering further into the lives of people you once knew. So I keep thinking that I should probably write some blog entries there, so that people “peering in” would have something informative to read. And then I think maybe I should just link back to this page. But ultimately, I don’t think that I want random people who were not my “friends” in high school to have access to these surprisingly personal (web)pages.

And then there’s the popularity contest aspect. Like it or not, I keep track of how many “friends” people have. And I wonder if I’m not putting my all into this because I don’t want to face rejection (again) from my former peers. It doesn’t matter that I AM witty and successful – not to mention happy, driven, smart, political, AND surrounded by amazing people who care very deeply for me – I still weirdly seek the approval of whomever visits the site. I check every day to see whether new people have sent me “friend requests” or whether anyone has left a fun “comment” on my page that makes me look popular and fun. And I get disappointed (quite regularly) when there’s nothing new.

Sigh. It’s a slippery slope, my friends (or “friends,” whichever the case may be). First blogger, then MySpace, and I’m sure I’ll end up with a Friendster account someday. Ah, the internet….

Mind & Body, Body & Mind

2006-06-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

My body hurts. This is not new. It has been my reality for over two months now. It started with lower back pain similar to what I experience just before I start bleeding, but more intense. I prepped for a long heavy bleed, but my period came and went normally while the back pain raged on.

I got sick with a cold, took a final exam, and then got on a red eye flight to Tennessee to attend my grandparents’ dual memorial services and help start the process of sorting through the lives of these people I hardly knew. These were people who always seemed to be related merely by blood and not by any sort of emotional interest or investment. Even so, the trip was extremely emotional for me. It’s strange, but I almost feel closer to them in their deaths than I ever felt during their lives. I certainly know more about them, if nothing else.

Upon my return from Tennessee, I developed a peculiar rash on the front of my right hip. For five days I watched it. For five days it did nothing. It didn’t get better; it didn’t get worse; it didn’t change color; it didn’t change shape; it didn’t hurt – it didn’t DO anything. And still the back pain….

I finally went to a doctor. A 60-something white male M.D. He diagnosed me with oral or genital herpes… on my hip. Despite the fact that neither my symptoms nor the development of the rash matched what he was telling me and what I already knew about herpes simplex, he was adamant that this was oral or genital herpes (on my hip!) and that this was absolutely NOT herpes zoster – the strain of the herpes virus that causes both chicken pox and shingles.

But then something strange happened the day I left the doctor: the mysterious rash started to hurt. A lot. Ultimately, there was a band about four inches wide from my spine to the rash that was painful and extremely hyper-sensitive. It hurt to touch it; it hurt to have the temperature change; it hurt to wear clothes over it; it hurt not to wear clothes over it. I sought a second opinion and was diagnosed with shingles. Meanwhile, I had caught another cold. I had been sick twice in three weeks AND developed shingles. Fortunately, the cold and the shingles both faded away. My lower back pain was a different story.

Dianne suggested that I go to a chiropractor. Read: an energy worker who is educated as a chiropractor. This has been a bizarre experience for me. I lay on his table while he rubs talcum powder in circles on a small table with one hand and “scans” my body with his other hand searching for “hot spots.” The theory is that his fingers will stick to the table whenever he hits an energetic blockage. It is weird and I’ve had to do some interesting mind work to try to remain open to the possibility of this being effective. Whatever my mind is doing though, as I lay still on the table, I feel the pain occur in waves: I experience very intense back pain to complete comfort and back again all without moving a muscle, just depending on what he is doing. After I leave my back feels achy, as if I’d just received a massage. It’s freaky, but you have to believe that something is happening.

Still, I wasn’t convinced. I returned to an M.D. for X-rays and blood work, all of which came back completely normal. While that was a relief, the back pain had reached a level of intensity that led me back to acupuncture, despite my nervousness about it.

Meanwhile, somewhere along the way, my neck tweaked out again, creating significant pain in my neck, shoulder, and upper back in addition to the lower back pain. Also, my right knee has become inflamed and it cracks and pops and hurts a great deal.

I’m a mess.

****************************************************************

Dianne is convinced that my body is trying desperately to talk to me, and I can’t help but agree. The chiropractor and acupuncturist have similar theories: something seems to be blocking my energy and/or blood flow and this is causing me pain. I was forced to do some thinking when Dianne suggested that there is a significant disconnect between my mind and body. I reflected on the reality that I experienced absolutely no pain or other symptoms commonly associated with shingles until AFTER the strange rash was given a name that my mind could compute.

To present, I feel like my body is purging and my mind is just trying desperately to hang on. I have been crying a lot. It seems like anything can make me cry these days. But this isn’t the same kind of crying that I experienced nearly two years ago when I began therapy. That was depressed crying – sad crying. What I am experiencing now seems to be emotional crying – crying when I am happy, when I’m sad, when I’m moved by something, when I’m with people I love. My body is releasing with an intensity that can be frightening. I have found myself “hiccup” sobbing more in the past two months than I have in the past several years. And it still feels like there is so much more that needs to come out.

Last week in therapy, Dianne suggested that we need to start working on understanding what is blocking me. She assumed this to be the first time my body has responded this way. I pointed out how I used to get nauseous to the point of vomiting when I was around someone I was attracted to. And then there was last year, when it took almost a full year of physical and massage therapy to work out the tension and blockage in my upper back and shoulders that was causing incredible pain in my neck.

And maybe this all sounds crazy. Like, it’s probably just tension. Just relax, right? But what I know is that I truly don’t know what I’m holding onto, but it scares the shit out of me to find out. I start crying at the mere though of digging deeper to try to work through whatever it is. I’m surprised by the fear I have around this, and that scares me even more.

Even so, I know that it’s hurting me to keep holding onto it. Literally. I don’t know what it is and I don’t have a clue what it will look like to figure it out. Hell – I don’t even know that I’m ready. But I know I’ll be okay.

My task in the meantime is to own it and make it mine. I’ve caused myself a lot of grief trying to hand it to others, begging them to make it go away. So I get to do the work now at connecting my mind and body. I get to try to listen to it and try to take care of it when it tells me to. I get to breathe with it and think about it with love and gentleness and not with pain and frustration. I get to work on being conscious of the way my body moves – to try to strengthen my core muscles to protect my lower back. I get to know my body better. And I get to understand even more about the path I’ll travel to medicine and healing.

And we’ll just see what happens next….

So Said Stephen Colbert To the President...

2006-05-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

"Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I've been asked to make an announcement. Whoever parked 14 black bullet proof S.U.V.'S out front, could you please move them. They are blocking in 14 other black bulletproof S.U.V.'S and they need to get out.

"Wow, wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents’ dinner. To just sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what; I'm a pretty sound sleeper that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

"Is he really not here tonight? The one guy who could have helped. By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly on into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. Will be right over with a cocktail. Mrs. Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps.

"Mr. President and first lady, my name is Stephen Colbert and it’s my privilege tonight to celebrate our president. He's no so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brain backs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the fact (police). We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say I did look it up and that’s not true. That's [because] you looked it up in a book.

"Next time look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, ok? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the no fact zone. Fox news, I own the copyright on that term.

"I'm a simple man with a simple mind, with a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists.

"My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how “The Washington Post" spins that one tomorrow. I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out in plastic for three cents a unit.

"In fact, ambassador, welcome, your great country makes our happy meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least.

"And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq. I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be it Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe our infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it’s not butter. Most of all I believe in this president.

"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us; we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

"So, Mr. President, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it’s important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means its 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn’t drink it. The last third is usually backwash. Folks, my point [is] that I don’t believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull, before a comeback.

"I mean, it's like the movie “Rocky." The president is Rocky and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world. It's the 10th round. He's bloodied, his corner man, Mick, who in this case would be the vice president, and he’s yelling cut me, dick, cut me, and every time he falls he says stay down! Does he stay down? No. Like rocky he gets back up and in the end he -- actually loses in the first movie.

"Ok. It doesn't matter. The point is the heart warming story of a man who was repeatedly bunched in the face -- punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it.

"I haven’t. I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, has he stood on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

"Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite powered car.

"And I just like the guy. He's a good Joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma’am.

"I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist telling us what is or isn't true, what did or didn't happen. What's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American. I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday, that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man’s beliefs never will. And as excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of fox news.

"Fox News gives you sides of every story, the president’s side and the vice president’s side. But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on N.S.A. Wiretapping or secret prisons in Eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason, they’re super depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good over tax cuts, W.M.D. Intelligence, the affect of global warms. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

"But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know: fiction.

"Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the white house has personnel changes. Then you write they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This ship's not sinking.

"This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on The Hindenburg...

"Now, it's not all bad guys out there. Some heroes, Buckley, Kim Schieffer. By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be to my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is I promise you. How is Tuesday...tonight?

"General Mosley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace. They still support Rumsfeld. You guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld. Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble, don't let them retire. C'mon, we've got a stop loss program; let's use it on these guys. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle.

"C'mon. Jesse Jackson is here. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he’s going to say what he wants at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

"Justice Scalia’s here. May I be the first to say welcome, sir. You look fantastic. How are you? (imitates hostile gestures Scalia was reported to have made)

"John McCain is here. John McCain - John McCain. What a maverick. Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. He could have used a spoon. There's no predicting him. So wonderful to see you coming back into the republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light.

"Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city. Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I would like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., The chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a malamarsh is what I’m describing, a seasonal cookie.

"Joe Wilson is here, the most famous husband since Dezi Arnez. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god! Oh, what have I said? I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along his lovely wife, Joe Wilson's wife.

"Pat Fitzgerald is not here tonight? Dodged a bullet.

"And we can't forget man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret service name, Snow Job. What a hero, took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq. Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else.

"McClellan, eager to retire. Really felt like he needed to spend more time with Andrew Card’s children. Mr. President, I wish you hadn't made the decision to quickly, sir. I was vying for the job. I think I would have made a fabulous press secretary. I have nothing but contempt for these people. I know how to handle these clowns. In fact, sir, I brought along an audition tape and with your indulgence, I'd like to at least give it a shot. So, ladies and gentlemen, my press conference."

(Note: A video section followed with Colbert sparring with reporters and eventually running away from journalist Helen Thomas. Find that here.)

(I pulled the speech from here and here.)

My favorite comment on Chris Durang's blog (I italicized and bolded my favorite part):
"For every occasion the media starts showing some backbone, along comes an event like this to show just how cowed they truly are...

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, you couldn't avoid a replay of the displaced homeowner telling Vice President Cheney to go f*** himself. Here we have a guy with television show on 4 days a week, telling the PRESIDENT, HIS MINIONS AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA to go f*** themselves for a good 20 minutes. And it seems to me he KNEW he was bombing-bombing in front of that crowd, anyway. And he did it. Maybe he was afraid, but in that moment, he was fearless. He was saying what 30 to 42 percent of the American people (depending on which survey you subscribe to and how much of the margin of error you want in Bush's favor) desperately needed Bush to hear: You're an awful President. You're an awful person. We don't know why so many reporters want to continue the ruse but we are not believers and we are not amused. We are hurting. We're finding it increasingly difficult to fuel our cars and heat our homes, and to work more means to spend less time with our families who are getting shortchanged by your No Child Left Behind nonsense. You have divided this country, perhaps the deepest its been divided since our Civil War. If you can't help us, at least stop hurting us. And if you can't stop hurting us then don't be surprised when a man far more intelligent than you hurts you, in front of your face, for the world to see, crushes your wittle feelings into so many mashed potatoes (so you can't injure yourself, like you would with a pretzel), and for once makes you know what it feels like to be somebody's bitch. Lord knows it's how we all feel every time you open your piehole.

If there's even the slimmest of chances Stephen Colbert reads the HP, I congratulate him and thank him and consider him more of a hero than anyone in this Administration could ever hope to become. no matter how many medals of Freedom they may inappropriately receive."

- slappymagoo, 05.01.2006

Life

2006-05-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am amazed by life. Last night George followed me as I crawled into bed. I couldn’t turn off the light because I just had to watch him for a while. I had to see the way that he tells me that he’s happy, or how he shows me where he wants to be petted. I love the way his eyes follow things – toys, bugs, invisible objects. More amazing to me is that this creature – this whole other species – appears to know me and love me in precisely the way I know and love him.

I remember being this amazed by Midnight. It never ceased to astonish me when Midnight chose, on his own accord, to spend every night of our shared lives with the full length of his body stretched out alongside mine, kneading and nuzzling my neck, purring away. Even before that, it was incredible the things that cat allowed me to do to him when I was much younger. I used to wrap him up in baby blankets, dress him up in doll’s clothes – it was just awful the things I did to him. ; ) And he tolerated every moment of it without really ever fussing about it. In his old age, he never lost his recognition of his family. He always seemed to know just who I was, even though I saw him only once or twice a year. And his love for my family never wavered, not through the pain of arthritis or through the frustration of getting his mats combed or cut out. Even when he rarely moved off my parents’ bed, he was quick with a purr, a kiss, and some ever-available drool whenever someone he loved entered the room. How amazing is that?

And of course Murray… watching him live and die with such strength and grace brought me to tears on more than one occasion. He was the first that I cried over and he most surely won’t be the last.

I can only imagine being a parent. To hold a human life so precious to you, to see their open minds and unconditional love, to wonder what they’ll make of themselves when they grow up and always knowing that it will be something wonderful. To see bright little eyes that seem to recognize only you and to be the only one who can make the hurt stop (at least for a minute)… How amazing is that?

I look around at the people who are close to me now. Each is amazing in her/his own way. It is powerful how we nourish each other just by our mere existence and our ability to love and have compassion. The diversity of our interests is what allows this society to carry on. The myriad skills that we all possess and the willingness to pursue our dreams are astounding.

So sometimes I am just amazed by life and I take some quiet moments to reflect and rejoice and allow myself to be moved to tears.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

2006-04-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve been meaning to write this blog entry for some time now, but life has gotten in the way of my posting anything lately. However, as I just read two fascinating articles yesterday about corporate involvement in killing the labor movement (not shocking) and in supporting the current genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan (slightly more shocking), my sense of urgency in spreading this word was renewed.

I am an activist. At various times in my life, my activism has been far more visible than it is at this moment. In college, I was running discussion groups, organizing marches, tabling in the cafeteria – whatever it took. At present, a full time job, school, relationship, city life, and the rest have cut back on my more “visible” activism. And yet, I am always seeking out ways to influence culture, both locally and on a more global scale. Much of my activism at this juncture in my life tends to be more personal than it once was. Not that the topics are any more or less personal to me (duh), but my methodology has changed. Mostly, my activist emerges during one on one conversations, as I truly believe in grass roots activism and mere exposure to different ideas is a good way to get people thinking. Or sometimes I just talk about things that may not be common knowledge. Or I write about various injustices on my blog. Etc., etc. These aspects of my activism are well-known, as I tend to be loud and verbose. My monetary activism is less well known.

Several years back, the company I work for sold its soul to the devil (literally – the infamous Carlyle Group holds a large portion of the stock). Prior to that sell-out we were technically an “employee-owned” company – meaning simply that all employees owned a certain number of shares of stock in the company. When the vote came down that we would sell out the employee-owned portion of the stock, most of the employees got paid for their share. Most of us came out of it with something resembling retirement income (which was nice, considering that the company, at that time, had no other retirement program in place). Our options were to keep the money in the low-risk/low-yield 401K account that was automatically created for each of us, or to roll the money over to some other type of account. Many of my colleagues let it sit, many more cashed it out to buy first homes or pay off debts, and me? Well, I did some research. Even before I knew I had an option, I knew that I did not want my (relatively meager sum of) money to be invested in an evil corporation…or several. And thus I discovered the wonderful world of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI).

I began conversations with Justin Harris to explore options for my newly established retirement account. Justin specializes in this work and his office has something like over $140 million dollars invested in companies that meet certain environmental, labor, product, and other good business requirements. Money is not invested in the “military industrial complex”, the “prison industrial complex”, weapons manufacturers, evil pharmaceutical companies, the alcohol/tobacco industry, companies that profit off of war and blood, and various other companies that violate environmental laws, labor laws, and other laws. Participating companies are constantly evaluated to be sure that they are in compliance with the established requirements. Those with vastly more money than I have are able to further sway corporate activity by investing and divesting in companies of their choice. It is a beautiful thing.

You don’t have to be wealthy to have an impact either. There are options out there for even small sums of money to go a long way in helping out this world. For retirement accounts, Calvert is a great place to start with a relatively low minimum deposit. First Affirmative is even more diverse in its investment options (but they have a rather high minimum deposit of $50,000). Pax World Funds is another one. Domini Social Investments, Insight Investment, Parnassus Investments, Sierra Club Funds, Women's Equity Mutual Fund, and several others with religious bents. Just do a little research. Although I have used ING Direct for my money market (savings) accounts for several years now, Justin recently exposed me to Self-Help Credit Union, which is a socially responsible version of ING Direct with comparable (read: even better) interest rates. (Although I have not yet made the change, exposure is the idea here.) I believe Self-Help has a one time $25 fee to join and maybe a minimum account balance, where ING doesn’t, but you could always start with ING and make a change once your account swells to the required minimum level. Whatever you want to do with your money.

That’s the point, isn’t it? Too many of us just go along with whatever someone tells us about our investments (and our health). It seems to be too much work to do the research and to learn what to do with this stuff. I’m not saying you need to learn how to invest for yourself. (Hell – I am neither interested nor willing to invest for myself! That’s why I have Justin.) I am just saying that you have choices. You can talk to your company or your financial advisor or whomever and ask them about SRI. And if they have no answers, you can talk to someone who does. And then you can move your money if you decide that it’s the right thing for you.

There are movements out there, people. The article I read yesterday in this week’s Nation was about how two Harvard students discovered that Harvard had invested millions of dollars in a Chinese oil company that was contributing vast amounts of money to the Sudanese government, which was most certainly using said money to commit atrocities in Darfur. The Harvard students organized, and by April 2005 Harvard divested. Most of the other Ivies followed suit, and then the California educational system, and then the California Teacher’s Union (with nearly $140 billion invested). Clearly, these divestments have not quashed the genocide. But, in response, the government of Sudan has taken out several advertisements in the New York Times and other media decrying these divestments. The effects are being felt. And that started with two students who did not like how their university’s money was being spent.

If these students could make such a difference without even using their own money, imagine what you can do. Every little bit matters, no matter how small the amount. How cool is that? The moral is: even if you, like me and many others, feel that right now you don’t have the energy or interest to be active, you can be with relatively little effort and a great deal of effect. Look into it and never have to wonder/worry about what your money is being used for.

Oh, and for those of you who are curious about the rate of return on socially responsible investments: research has demonstrated that SRI funds perform the same as non-SRI funds. I’m convinced it’s the way of the future. Or at least, it needs to be for this planet to survive.

(I’ve linked to many pertinent sites, but send a comment if you want more information on SRI.)

Cinderella's Magical Talking Kitchen

2005-12-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

What the hell?

So I turned on my television this morning (sadly, something I do surprisingly often to keep me company while I work or zone or whatever) and found only Saturday morning cartoons on almost every station (mind you, I no longer have cable since moving to my new place). When I turned on the television, most stations were broadcasting commercials, as they usually are. You know, I’ve read some pieces on how advertisers target children to achieve brand loyalty when we’re all VERY young, but it’s been a while since I’ve watched any television geared towards children outside of Sesame Street. Every damn commercial (advertising toys for young children) annoyed me not only because of the long-time hard-core commercialization of fun, not only because of the time and energy expended on coming up with new ways to manipulate this country’s children to want want want material crap, but also because of the horrible horrible gender socialization that occurs when a child is watching.

Now, I would not go so far as to argue that the way the popular Disney version of the Cinderella fairy-tale unfolds is particularly feminist. I don’t know that the version set in ink by the Brothers Grimm is either. However, from what I can recall of Cinderella, she is a pretty strong-willed, independent thinker who relies on the help of some good friends and her own solidly good nature to “live happily ever after.” Although I do not necessarily believe in the tactics of wearing a pretty dress and glass slippers (depending on the version of the story) and doing your hair just right in order to attend a bourgeois ball to snag the man of your dreams as a lesson to teach the young women in my life, I do believe there is something to be said for Cinderella’s perspicacity and practical knowledge that allowed her to make her own dress practically from scratch (again, depending on the version) and her own plan to pull it together and make shit happen for herself. She saw a way to make her life better and she took care of it, using the skills she knew she had. Now that sort of confidence and good thinking is something I would like to see all young women to possess.

What I do not recall, however, is Cinderella really enjoying doing all the cooking, cleaning, and other housework for her evil step-mother and step-sisters. Making the most of a bad situation, perhaps, but enjoying it? No way. In fact, there is no mistaking in any version of the fairy-tale that Cinderella’s being relegated to the kitchen all the days of her life is anything other than a bad situation. So why then is the newest thing for young girls “Cinderella’s Magical Talking Kitchen”? I repeat: what the hell?

I love how advertisers completely miss the point. Or, like our president, they completely get the point and then they completely ignore it. The problem is, young children are just not knowledgeable or cynical enough to ignore what’s being thrown at them. Instead, young girls get excited about cooking in a “magical kitchen” that talks. Excellent. I’m glad we’re teaching our young girls such important skills. Oh – and also – the food that is already prepared for these young girls to “cook” is all unhealthy and full of sugar: muffins, cookies, cakes, and the like. Even worse, the young girls acting as Cinderella in this fairy-tale of a commercial are wearing ball gown-like dresses as they “bake”. What an archaic idea of the woman’s role as homemaker, baker of sweet things, and pretty princess. Seriously?

The three commercials that I was vaguely aware of in the background were as follows: 1) Cinderella’s Magical Talking Kitchen – because all little girls want to be princesses of the… kitchen? 2) A DVD that teaches dance moves to popular music – depicting only little girls in ballerina tutus, of course, because all little girls want to be ballerinas and no little boys want to dance or need the exercise/movement. And also, because our five- and six-year-olds need to be taught how to thrust their hips and shake their booties in rhythm to pop music. And 3) toys that had options for both boys and girls: a fully-loaded pirate’s chest in earth tones for the boys, and a doll house in pastels for the girls.

What kind of message does that send? That our sons should be thieves, hoarding their booty, while our daughters should just be innocent pretty skinny weak domesticated shoppers? I don’t buy it. In more ways than one.

Can we really think of nothing better to teach our children to aspire to in this society? Give me a break.

Too Close For Comfort...

2005-12-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular listener to NPR's program All Things Considered, this might have caught your ear. If you prefer to see it in writing, try here. The astute reader will understand my discomfort, beyond how tragic the whole scenario is in general.

George! George! Who the #@$% is George?

2005-09-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well, friends, I have done something foolish and wonderful all at the same time. On 8 September 2005, I opened my heart to yet another member of the feline family. I met him one week prior while looking for my dear Henry at the Seattle Animal Shelter. I hate shelters. I mean that they are incredibly difficult for me (and almost everybody else I know). So I had made it through several times prior with relatively little trauma by avoiding eye contact with any of the blessed souls in the place. On that fateful day, I had no choice, as this little one locked eyes with me and stared right into my soul. I stood there talking to this tiny orange tabby, knowing instinctively that he was a little boy who had a fire in him. His brother and sister slept soundly while he watched me with those eyes. I reassured him that there was no need for him to be scared and that everything was going to be okay. I promised him, even, and then I had to leave the place. For the following week, I couldn’t stop thinking about this tiny little guy, and I woke up last Thursday with a name for him. I called Faith and told her that I had a problem: if I returned to the shelter that day to look for Henry-Pants, I was going to bring home a tiny orange baby kitten and his name was going to be George. Faith told me I should do it. So in I went.

At first, Michael (who was very bitchy in an adorable way and almost certainly gay) told me that these three kittens were too young and too sick to be adopted. Technically, they were not up for adoption, as they were in the section of the shelter that is reserved for newcomers that are held by law for at least three days. Mike said that they were all too sick and that they should not be at the shelter at all because they are babies and their immune systems are not up to the task of being exposed to all of the diseases that pass through a shelter. Regardless, Mike told me that I seemed honest and decided that I should take George home with me after I assured him that I would be responsible and that I have dealt with kitty sickness before. After a quick feline leukemia test and some ear mite medication, George was boxed up and ready to go home with me. He was at the vet and on antibiotics the next day, and we had also discovered by then that he was covered with fleas. Poor little punkin. I turned the heat on in my bathroom and put a little heating pad in there for him and he slept and sneezed and sniffled and slept some more for several days. And then he got some energy. By Day 5 or so, he was literally running in circles around my bathroom and, finally on Thursday, a full seven days after his adoption, George Emmett was allowed out of quarantine. He has been quite the terror since then, and I have wondered what I’ve gotten myself into, as I haven’t had a kitten since I was eight years old. He is literally the size of my foot and weighs 1.4 pounds. He’s a tiny little bundle of energy. But, true to kitten form, he plays hard and then crashes hard and he is quite the little cuddle-bumpkin when he gets sleepy. Faith Abigail and I are adjusting to his playfulness. He is enamored with her and so desperately wants to snuggle with her, which she finds to be quite irritating. So things have been a little hectic around my house in the past week.

Perhaps needless to say, Henry is still missing. I guess we’re at something like seven weeks now and no word at all. There’ve been many sightings of cream-colored cats all around Seattle, but none have turned out to be my little guy. I miss him and his wonderful loveliness. I miss his snuggles and his licking and his rolling around grunting on my living room floor. I miss his purring and his expressions. While I still visit the shelter on a regular basis looking for him and while I would love so much to know where he is right now, I have also reached some sense of peace around his absence. First and foremost, I just have to trust that the universe knows what it is doing and that Henry and I will be delivered whatever it is that we need right now. I have to believe that Henry is precisely where he needs to be and if he is supposed to come back to me he will and if I never see him again that is just the way it’s supposed to be.

I truly believe that he is a creature with at least nine lives. I trust this because the very little I know about his history is enough demonstration. First of all, Henry has sustained some very serious injuries in his lifetime. You look at the scars on his body and you wonder how he ever survived. He survived either because he was very well-cared-for at the time of his injuries or because his little body has an amazing ability to heal itself. Secondly, Henry was likely on the streets for some time before getting into the shelter system three years ago. I suspect this because the pads of his feet were all calloused and rough when he came to me. I believe that he has the skills to survive on the street and I have little concern about him for this reason. Thirdly, Henry was placed in the Everett Animal Shelter and literally the day he was to be killed, he was taken in by a foster person working with the amazing Pasado’s Safe Haven. Within a week, he was in my care. It seems very clear to me that this creature has a purpose on this earth and that he is a protected life. I trust that he will survive whatever is in store for him with some ease until his purpose is fulfilled.

I will never know for sure why Henry was in my life in the first place or why he left it when he did, but I have been musing on the fact that Henry entered my life in October 2002, at precisely the time that Murray began to get sick. Murray’s diagnosis came just a few months later in January 2003. Henry was with us every step of the way through Murray’s entire disease. Murray passed away in January 2005 and I feel as though I learned much from Henry around that passing. I saw how Henry stayed with Murray during his final day on earth and I know that Henry is the only living creature who was there when Murray let go of this life. What passed between them in that instant is way beyond me, but I have no doubt that Henry was a comfort. Upon my arrival in my apartment a short time later to discover that Murray had passed away, Henry was there to comfort me. He lay near Murray’s body and showed that he understood on an instinctual level what had happened. But he also interacted with Barbara and me as if he didn’t entirely understand why we were so upset. His sense of the whole death experience was that it was simply a part of life and not something to fear or fret about. Watching Henry’s response to Murray’s death got me thinking about my fear about death. I realized that we, as humans, tend to fear death because it is unknown and not understood. We think so much about it and what it means and what happens after death that it becomes so huge and incomprehensible that it’s scary. But as I watched Henry approach Murray’s death with no fear at all, I was comforted in the fact that Henry – who operates according to instinct and energy alone – was not at all concerned about it. I realized that I needed to learn something from this creature and to begin to approach death with the same instinctual and natural trust as Henry does. Considering how much Henry helped me cope with the loss of Murray, I find it to be even more interesting that Henry disappeared only seven months after Murray died. It makes me wonder whether Henry was in my life simply to teach me a thing or two about sickness and death, and even about closure and loss. Whether or not this is the true purpose behind our path together, I really enjoy the idea of Henry as this wandering spirit who lands where he needs to in order to help others learn about life. And, now, watching a brand new life enter my space and recover from illness with a little help from me and my vet makes me wonder whether Henry left me just so that I could experience this. George needed a home and Henry, indirectly, was able to make one available. Had Henry not disappeared, George would never have had the chance to enter my life. I realized the first night George was here with us that Henry had yet again given an amazing gift. I am so grateful for all that Henry taught me and I won’t forget it. He will be missed for however long he stays away. And it is okay that that may be for forever.

Sacrifice

2005-09-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

What does it mean and when is it okay? When is it compromise and when is it too much? Is it ever truly healthy or is there always some level of invisibility to one’s own needs and desires when sacrifice happens?

As I spend so much time in therapy working on identifying my own needs and making them (and therefore myself) visible to those around me, the idea of sacrifice has proved somewhat of a challenge to me. I hadn’t noticed it too much before now – perhaps because the full extent of my sacrifice had not truly been evaluated until this past week. Up until this past week, my move to Denver has been purely hypothetical – a construct with no basis in reality. It’s true that it still is, to some extent. The difference now is only that my job transfer from here to there is completely approved and ready to go. And, of course, once that became reality, I finally started examining the various aspects of this move.

First, the financial and emotional burden of moving in and of itself sucks, plain and simple. However, whenever two people living far apart decide they want to live closer to each other, this is the reality of their situation. One or the other or both must take on these costs. This I have come to terms with as much as possible three months prior to my proposed move date.

Second, I confirmed that I would take a decent sized pay cut upon my move. This has to do with some rather skewed “cost of living” data that puts Denver as a “low cost of living” location while Seattle is considered a location of “moderate cost of living.” This I had suspected, but I was unaware of the specifics of how big or small that pay cut would be until my conversation with Bob.

Third, in moving to Denver, I will suddenly be paying out of state tuition for all of my prerequisites rather than the in state tuition that I pay now. I don’t yet have a decent concept of how much of a change this will be in my tuition, but I’m guessing it will be significant. It may prove even more significant, as I plan on paying in full for every one of my prerequisite classes such that I’m not in debt before I quit my job to attend school full time. I have been able to do this in Seattle and still save a good amount of money, so I am slightly concerned about my ability to continue this in Denver.

Fourth, there appears to be only one school in the Denver area that operates on a quarter system, rather than a semester system, and it is a private school. Here in Seattle, I have been taking my classes at a local community college that runs in quarters. As most of the naturopathic schools require certain numbers of classes rather than years of classes, I would be able to get through my prerequisites much more quickly by staying in Seattle (e.g. it would take me only nine months to get through three chemistry courses in Seattle while it would take me 18 months to get through three chemistry courses in Denver, give or take). Since I plan to be working full time throughout my prerequisites, it would be difficult to take more than one class at a time. If I really want to finish up in less than two years, I would need to take at least two classes at a time while working full time in Denver. This may be easier in Denver if classes meet less often, but I don’t have any of this information as of yet.

Fifth, I need to start volunteering/interning in the medical field. Here in Seattle, I have an idea of where to pursue these sorts of opportunities and I would need to start from scratch in Denver.

Sixth, I would need to find a new therapist. Considering how vastly much I believe Dianne has helped me change my life over the past year, this task seems daunting. Also, Dianne is the first therapist in a long time that I have taken seriously.

Seventh, friends. But, again, that will be the case either way and is a sad fact of moving. I’ve made and left friends all over this country and know that the good ones stay on long after you’ve moved away.

I think I’ve been telling myself that all of my reasons are either just natural parts of moving and not that big of a deal or just financial. But even the financial reason is enough. After all, the real goal of the next two years is to save as much money as possible before quitting my job and giving myself into the hands of the universe to pursue this dream of becoming a physician. And when I really look into how much longer it will take me to get to the point of being able to quit my job, it gets scary for me. My job does not make me happy and I truly can’t wait for the day that I can set it down and not look back.

I have some very solid reasons for not moving to Denver.

On the other hand, I have considered all of these reasons previously and have still rested reasonably well in the idea of the move. Am I questioning now only because it just became more real or because there are real reasons for me to question?

When Bob asked me why Faith wasn’t moving to Seattle, I told him this was a compromise. This is true in that Faith has already determined that, if we remain together, she will move to wherever I end up going to school. The whole idea of my moving to Denver was my own suggestion, when I began noticing that it appeared to be only her who was making sacrifices. I wanted to step up to my part in making a relationship work, and I still do. I do believe that part of a working relationship is making some healthy sacrifices. But at what point do these sacrifices become unhealthy?

I talked to Dianne about it the other day, telling her that I had finally talked to Bob about transferring. We were discussing why I had volunteered to move to Denver in the first place and I started to say that Faith being the one moving to me seemed unfair in that she appeared to be the only one making any changes or sacrifices to make this thing work. Dianne interrupted me before I could say “unfair” and she replaced it with the word “unfamiliar.” We then talked about how completely unfamiliar it is to me for people to be making sacrifices like that for me in the context of a relationship like this. Nobody has before. Nobody has been asked to or maybe even able to because I have been the one willing to make such changes. So when a “giver” meets a “giver”, things get tricky. Of course, believing/recognizing that Faith and I have some similar issues in always wanting to “do” for the other person, it is uncomfortable for me to know that she is willing to give up her life in Denver to be closer to me. But how much of that is mine, I wonder? I can really only do what’s best for me and she needs to make her own decisions. It is not my role to try to protect her and I need to trust that she is an adult who will make whatever decisions are best for her.

Still, I am struggling to know what is best for me right now. I have been playful about the idea of moving to Denver, in that there is much excitement for me in moving to a new city and learning my way around so that I have some intimate familiarity with a whole new part of this beautiful country. I would rejoice in hiking in the Rocky Mountains and it would be fun to have a whole new location for my family and friends to visit. It is beautiful there – certainly no Seattle, but beautiful nonetheless. I would enjoy experiencing new places and meeting new people and exploring. And Faith. I revel in the idea of being closer to her so that I can better understand and experience what this is between us. Moving to Denver (and knowing it to be a relatively temporary move) feels like a vacation to me. I get to do all of the same things I’m doing here – working, going to school, hiking, playing – but in a whole new location. And I know that I would return to the Northwest, as this is where my heart is, I believe.

I think part of the problem is that Faith has now been considering moving to Seattle sooner rather than later. This has allowed me to start thinking about the benefits of staying here. For her, it seems to be for purely financial reasons, in that she would see her salary increase by the same amount that mine would decrease. She, too, recognizes that our goal is to save money, and her moving to Seattle would financially benefit us both. I am trying to feel her out about this, as we originally discussed my moving to Denver when she identified that she wasn’t quite ready to leave there yet. I have told her to talk to others about it, but we’ve been discussing the pros and cons of her moving rather than me moving. Originally, it sounded like her reasons were all about me: I could save more money, I could get through my prerequisites, I would continue paying less money for my classes. Now, her only consideration seems to be her finances. I find this to be both wonderful and devastating, as I truly want her to consider herself above all else, but hearing her say that it really has nothing to do with me kind of hurt in that I heard her saying that my situation is less important than hers and that all of my schooling issues are non-issues for her. I know this is neither true nor what she intended to say, and I know she cares about those things for my sake. However, today I am thinking a lot about my conversation with Jessica the other night, wherein we discussed how important it is just to know that your partner is willing. Regardless of the decision that is made about which one of us is moving when, I would like to be reassured right now that she is willing to come here if I need her to. And yet, I recognize that she has been willing at different times, as she was the one who was initially willing to relocate to pursue this thing and she has suggested on a few occasions that we both relocate to somewhere that meets both of our needs. And, also, I recognize my own hypocrisy as I start to freak out as the time draws nearer. How is it okay for me to start to think that staying in Seattle is a better choice for me at the same time that I am distressed by the possibility that she would do the same?

I know in my heart that things will work out in just the way they are supposed to and that whatever decision is made will be a good one. But I can't say that this is an easy decision. It's funny how I really thought it was earlier on. Relationships are thought-provoking and challenging and difficult and wonderful, huh? I guess I’m just learning to experience the ride and trust myself to follow my own truth – whatever that may be.

Katrina

2005-09-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

Please PLEASE read this amazing, powerful, profound, thought-provoking article by Joan Walsh. Please read the article in its entirety. And please do it with some time and space to process what it really means and what has really happened. We must start to see and acknowledge the policies/politics that made this tragedy vastly worse than it could have been. There is no other way to find our voices and seek change through justice and accountability. We all owe it to these people; even more, we all owe it to ourselves.

Up With Susan Wood!! Down With Lester Crawford!!

2005-08-31T15:10:00.000-07:00

So honestly, anyone concerned about women's health in any form whatsoever needs to be aware of current events surrounding the FDA's renewed delay in allowing Plan B (AKA "the Morning After" Pill, AKA emergency contraception, AKA NOT an abortion) to be sold over the counter without a prescription. It is truly an unbelievable story. For those who are not following, emergency contraception has been "available" by prescription for many years now. [I write "available" due to the fact that many pharmacists around the country have refused to fill these prescriptions, in addition to refusing to fill any prescriptions for any sort of contraceptive pill. (As a sidenote: HOORAY for Texas. Yep -- Texas. The community of Austin, TX, has been the first in the country to decree that ANY prescription -- including prescriptions for regular and emergency contraception -- be filled immediately and on site at any Walgreens store within district limits. And Walgreens has agreed to the requirement. Apparently, Walgreens' policy had formerly been to provide information about another pharmacy that would fill such a prescription, provided that there were no pharmacists on duty who did not object to filling such prescriptions. Now, no pharmacists can send a patient away without filling the prescription in Austin.) (Also: HOORAY for Washington. Here in my state, Plan B is already available over the counter, no questions asked. Note: Plan B is also available OTC in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. HOORAY for all!)]

For those who know little or nothing about emergency contraception, educate yourselves here. And before I move on, I want to point out two things: 1) I linked you to a government website. I did this just so that no one would be up in arms about being linked to a website with some sort of "political agenda" (God forbid!) such as Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the Feminist Majority, NOW, or even Barr -- the pharmaceutical company that makes Plan B. 2) In case you don't follow the link, I think this paragraph is the most important for my purposes: "How does emergency contraception work? Emergency contraception keeps a woman from getting pregnant by stopping: ovulation, or stopping the ovaries from releasing eggs that can be fertilized; fertilization, or stopping the egg from being fertilized by the sperm; implantation, or stopping a fertilized egg from attaching itself to the wall of the uterus" (http://www.4woman.gov/faq/econtracep.htm).

As a review, Plan B does NOT induce abortion and WILL NOT WORK if a women is already pregnant. Rather, this pill (well, two pills actually) is merely a high dose of regular prescription birth control. As all of the articles I linked to attest, all of the scientific research advises that emergency contraception is very safe, not an abortifacient, and has no side effects or dangers that should require a prescription. And yet, the FDA will not approve OTC sales of the drug. Crawford was approved because he promised a final decision by September 1. He did not deliver. The FDA has been open to public comment on this topic for many months. Suggesting 60 more days is a spineless and irresponsible avoidance technique. The whole thing is downright offensive to women's health and Susan Wood is my new heroine. It's nice to know that someone high up and so well respected has principles enough to make such a clear oppositional statement. But I'm so sad that the fundamentalists in the world and in this administration are making these people leave their influential posts. Especially considering how many drugs have been approved just in the past couple of days, this is just ridiculous. (You can read FDA Commissioner Crawford's statement about this topic and provide your own comment about it here. And note that the FDA website has nothing about Wood's resignation. Of course.)

I think Katha Pollitt says it best in her article, "Virginity or Death!" (The Nation, 5/30/05): "As they flex their political muscle, right-wing Christians increasingly reveal their condescending view of women as moral children who need to be kept in line sexually by fear. That's why antichoicers will never answer the call of prochoicers to join them in reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available: They want it to be less available. Their real interest goes way beyond protecting fetuses--it's in keeping sex tied to reproduction to keep women in their place. If preventing abortion was what they cared about, they'd be giving birth control and emergency contraception away on street corners instead of supporting pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions and hospitals that don't tell rape victims about the existence of EC. David Hager . . . would never use his position with the FDA to impose his personal views of sexual morality on women in crisis. Instead of blocking nonprescription status for emergency contraception on the specious grounds that it will encourage teen promiscuity, he would take note of the six studies, three including teens, that show no relation between sexual activity and access to EC. He would be calling the loudest for Plan B to be stocked with the toothpaste in every drugstore in the land. How sexist is denial of Plan B?"

How indeed. And how frustrating to observe that, thus far, it is only women who seem to be up in arms about this issue. It was a woman, Susan Wood (who was appropriately the Assistant Commissioner and Director of the Office of Women's Health for the FDA) who resigned out of frustration with the FDA's avoidance of making a final decision. It is two women, Patty Murray and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are calling for a hearing about whether Crawford has disregarded science to make a political statement. And yet it is men who hold the ultimate say. A man, Lester Crawford, decided to delay the FDA's decision. And a man, Michael Enzi, ultimately decides whether Murray and Clinton will get their hearing.

But it makes sense, doesn't it? After all, it is women who bear the burden -- physically, financially, and emotionally -- of unwanted pregnancies. And it is men who seem to legislate it.

PS: Read Rachel Neumann's perspective on the same events here. And just so you know, her final paragraph on ID checks to sell alcohol and tobacco is exactly what I stated in the comment I wrote to the FDA. And then some.

Displaced

2005-08-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

Once again – nearing the end of my month-long work assignment far away from Seattle – I am grappling with a feeling that I have been displaced, that I don’t belong here, that I am not at home, that I am not home. It’s well-known that it takes an incredible amount of energy to travel, but it still takes me by surprise, particularly in these instances where I am traveling only to do the work that I do while at home in Seattle. I do not consider that my job is exhausting even when I am in my own space and that it would naturally be even more exhausting when I am supplanted in a new and unfamiliar location and culture until I am well into my time away. This assignment has felt vastly less familiar than my time in the DC-area. I’m sure this is due to the fact that I’ve spent time in DC, having attended both high school and college in the northeast. Also, I had very familiar visitors while there, and they not only helped the time pass quickly but they also made things seem more normal. In contrast, I have not experienced that sort of familiarity with things or people on this trip. I have never been to this area of this great country and it truly is different. Certainly, the climate is not what I’m used to: with lows in the mid-80s and dryness that is making my skin feel like it doesn’t quite fit me, I am once again reminded of what a wimp I have become after four years living in Seattle’s temperate climate. The desert landscape with one very distinct (and comparably small) mountain range is also an intense contrast from the mountainous and water-enclosed Seattle. But the people, too, are different.

Some of this is to be expected: of course, I will not find Alison to greet me at the office and competently answer my questions. And Jenn certainly won’t be meeting me for Cold Stone Creamery “lunches.” But the people just feel different to me. Like they know that I’m not from here and they look at me with funny expressions. (I’ve no doubt that this is me projecting, but perspective is reality… or so I’m told.) Even the interactions that I’ve expected to be reminiscent of “home” have been disappointing. For example, we were served by a woman who relocated to Santa Fe from Seattle a year ago. Rather than be excited about the connection with someone at least familiar with her homeland, she wanted nothing to do with me. Then today Faith and I met for lunch at Caffe Seattle. The only thing “homey” about it was the picture of the space needle behind the sink and the prices. When I finally did ask why the shop had its name, I discovered that no one associated with it has any association with Seattle. Rather, the previous owners (read six years ago owners) were from Seattle and were trying to capitalize on the coffee boom there twelve years ago.

But also, there is a lot happening to me on this trip that is unfamiliar. For one, I am sharing my space. This is not familiar to me, as I’ve lived by myself with my cats for more than three years at this point. Even as a temporary arrangement, it is a change from my norm. Additionally, I have lost another member of my family. I fear my return home only in that I will feel that loss more profoundly than I have yet experienced it. My space will feel different with the absence of Henry’s energy. It won’t feel quite so much like home. Similarly, the passing of Jinx causes even my home at my parents’ place to have a different feel about it.

And it has been expanding even farther than this. For those who don’t know, my car was nearly totaled on 8 July 2005 when a young kid driving his parents’ poorly maintained SUV ran a red light. I have not seen my car in just shy of two months. I miss my Emi and have yet to find a rental car that even begins to compare. When you drive only one car for several years, you form a relationship with that car. You understand how she drives and you know just how to work her. So not having her with me has been an uncomfortable experience. And, come October or November, I won’t have her with me with any regularity since my company is providing me a car. There are pros and cons to this: ultimately, I believe the company car will save me money in the long run; however, I have little to no interest in driving an automatic V-6 (read NOT fuel efficient) Chrysler Sebring Touring car AND I have to figure out something to do with Emi in the meantime so that I still have her when I finally quit my job.

My reflections on my own feelings of displacement have been accentuated by the fact that I am working in an area that is ripe with Native American culture. Seattle certainly has its fair share of native history, but somehow it feels more distant there than it does here. Here, people who work in the city live on the reservation. Poverty is close by. Many of the Native Americans with whom I’ve interacted have fought their on-going battles against alcoholism and other addictions. People have a certain “weathered” feel to them. Many of them seem tired.

Faith and I spent two days in Santa Fe last weekend to attend Indian Market sponsored by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts – an event which apparently draws nearly 100,000 tourists to the city each summer. It was an interesting experience that was both refreshing and devastating. It was wonderful to see all of these artists coming together and displaying the work that is keeping their cultures alive. People were energized and happy and it was like Faith and I were permitted to walk through this massive family reunion, which was open to a variety of families. And yet, there was something so sad about the whole scene. I was overwhelmed by how these people – these cultures – have been displaced and oppressed so horribly. Watching these people barter with customers (Faith and I included) to sell their precious works for less than they were asking was difficult. And there was definitely the feeling that Faith and I were outcasts there. Many of the vendors and artists would not even grace our questions with responses. It’s been a while since I’ve felt so white.

I’m looking forward to returning “home” to Seattle. It will be nice to be back in a culture that is familiar, in my own space, and in my own car. But I am appreciative of this time away for what I have learned from it and what I have experienced here. It’s always nice, if draining, to be taken completely out of my element for some time. It helps me remember who I am.

Like Father, Like Daughter

2005-08-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

I realized long ago that I am a lot like my father. It was a difficult realization that was a long time coming, as my father and I have often butted heads, with horns stubbornly locked, leaving us at an impasse.

I would love to sit here and describe to you all of the good points about my father that I have inherited: his sense of humor, his wit, his intelligence. It would certainly be revealing to point to his (and my) less endearing traits: his stubbornness, his arrogance, his temper. But today I was reminded of how similar we are on a seemingly neutral trait (depending on what you do with it): disappointment.

For those of you who don’t know, I am essentially living with Faith right now. (Well, technically, she’s living with me, but what’s the difference?) All in all, it’s gone amazingly well. For two weeks now, we’ve been sharing a small one bedroom hotel suite. And it’s been quite the two weeks, I assure you. Last week, I discovered not only that my beloved cat had been missing for a full week already (still nothing, by the way) but also that another beloved cat had passed away. Therefore, I was a bit emotional. Not to mention that I started bleeding and had quite possibly the worst cramps I’ve ever experienced. Last weekend, we chose to take the 6-7 hour drive (one way) up to Denver to do laundry, relax, meet more of her friends, see some of my friends, and attend a women’s music festival. That’s a long way to drive with only one non-driving day in between. This week, our hours have been the following: Monday – 12 hours, Tuesday – 12 hours, Wednesday – 11 hours, and today, Thursday – Faith is apparently going to hit and possibly surpass 11 hours, while I stopped at 9 hours and have so far composed a lengthy e-mail, completed a full internet search for Mr. Henry-Pants, and downed a beer. Needless to say, we’re tired. And I, in particular, have experienced some not-so-subtle feelings of crankiness.

Today, I was in a good mood. I interviewed 16 people yesterday and 14 people today. That’s a productive girl. Midway through my day, I was thinking about Faith. I was thinking about how wonderful she is and how I wanted to be with her tonight. I couldn’t wait to see her again and to spend more time with her. (How cheesy have I become in my old age?) I even came home twice during my day hoping that she would be here and that I would get to smile at her and sit in her presence for a bit. I cleaned the kitchen and thought about dinner. And then I realized it was time to head for my 4:30 PM appointment 20 miles east of Albuquerque. Just as I was heading out the door, I got a text message from Faith asking if I wanted to carpool to the very location I was headed. I called immediately to say that I absolutely DID want to carpool. And when I got her on the phone, she got practical. As soon as she answered, I exited off the freeway to try to meet her somewhere. But her practicality (and both of our unfamiliarity with this town) led to the decision that we should just go separately.

I was upset. I was really really upset. So upset, in fact, that I told her I needed to get off the phone with her and I couldn’t turn on my music for the rest of my drive because I was upset.

The silence allowed for a good deal of reflection. WTF, right? I couldn’t figure out what had made me SO upset. It wasn’t insecurity, because I know that she wants to spend as much time with me as I with her. (And, after all, she had been the one to suggest the carpool originally.) It wasn’t anger, as neither of us had done anything wrong or hurtful or stupid. All of a sudden, I realized that it was disappointment. I just wanted to see her and, for a minute, it seemed like I was going to. So when it wasn’t going to happen, I got upset.

I remember riding in the car on the way home from something or other when I was much younger. We happened to be somewhere near our favorite ice cream shop and my sister and I, recognizing this from the back seat, immediately started pleading with our parents to take us there. Our father suddenly became very upset and ultimately drove right past the ice cream shop without stopping. We didn’t understand – our pleading wasn’t overboard and we had been good all day. Come to find out, my dad had intended on stopping for ice cream the whole time. He wanted it to be a surprise and he was disappointed when we ruined the surprise by asking for the treat.

I have many stories about my dad’s disappointments. Many are just minor disappointments like the ice cream incident, but some are more serious and affect him deeply. I have seen him be disappointed in his churches, in his congregants, in his friends, and in his family. I have watched him experience disappointment in himself and I have experienced my own variety of this disappointment for much of my life.

I have recognized that my own disappointments come from my high expectations – reasonable or otherwise – and I know my father’s are a result of the same. I believe we are optimists, he and I, and that – almost by definition – leads to some disappointment along the line. Even knowing this, however, doesn’t make it less interesting to me to see myself follow his example of how to deal with disappointment. I was fascinated by the fact that, rather than be joyful in the original invitation and realistic about the ultimate impracticality of the suggestion, I closed down – got mad at her even – and felt incredible disappointment at the reality of the situation.

It’s always amusing when I see my father in myself. Partly, it makes things make sense – I can see my past in my present and I know where I come from. Partly, it makes me feel closer to my dad – I can better understand why he does the things he does and where he’s coming from. And partly, it makes me recognize where I want to go – I get to choose which aspects I want to keep and which I might want to let go.

It truly is remarkable what we can learn from our parents – if only we allow them to teach us.

Still Sad, Still Searching

2005-08-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

So it’s been a full week since I found out that Henry had gone missing. It’s been over two weeks since he left. My emotions have been in a weird place over the past week. Mostly, during the days, I’ve been focused on making contacts, checking websites, calling shelters, getting updates from Patrick and Barb, oh – and working a little bit here and there. This has kept me distracted enough to avoid the pure panic that is present.

Nights have been an interesting battleground. When things get quiet, I start dreading the worst. All last week, I lay in bed for long periods of time trying to calm myself down. The experience was bizarre: the awful thoughts invaded and panic began to set in. I would try to counteract with prayers to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. As I am not Catholic and have little to no connection with any of the saints, these prayers did not resonate with me and were therefore kept fairly short. Mainly, I asked simply that Henry find his way back to me. Then I turned my questions to the universe. I would lay there asking the universe to help me understand and trust. In my waking life, I typically believe that everything happens for a reason in just the way it’s supposed to, whether or not I understand it. So I would ultimately realize that I need to trust that, if it’s supposed to be, Henry will get back to me. And I need to trust that, if I don’t find him, it is because he needs to be with someone else right now, or that someone else needs to be with him right now. The interesting part is the physical reaction my body has once I achieve such a realization: my body lets go, everything relaxes, and within moments I am sleeping relatively soundly.

Friday was the first day that I felt I was able to carry a sense of calm into the day with me. I don’t know if it had just been long enough since I found out that the initial shockwave of emotion had worn off or if it really is that I have been more able to trust what’s happening around me and completely without my control. The past several days have been slightly more upbeat; I have not been dwelling or obsessing quite so much and I have been able to sleep – sans the tears and panic. I am trying to trust this, too, as guilt likes to creep in and convince me that I don’t care anymore and that’s why it feels better. My rational mind knows this is not true, but sometimes my guilt likes to challenge me for reasons that I don’t really need to have.

I miss him dearly already and I fear my return home to find him not there (should that be my reality) will not be pleasant. Being away has been so hard because I am completely out of control of the process. But even from this I am learning. Being away is maybe also a blessing because I have been adjusting to the idea without actually experiencing the reality of his loss. Then again, it is also prolonging the inevitable realization of not having this darling, funny, snuggly, full of love energy in my space in the future (again, should that be the reality).

Tonight I got sad again. Faith and I were just laying on the couch cuddling, having finished yet another episode of Queer As Folk (I must admit I’ve become a bit of an addict, but I still haven’t decided how I truly feel about the show). And suddenly, I just got really sad about it. So I decided to write. I feel somewhat frustrated even with the writing, as I don’t feel as though I’m putting forward anything beautiful or profound. If you’re not a cat person – and certainly if you don’t know me at all – this is contributing little to nothing to your life. But it’s important to me – in fact, it’s the most important thing happening to me at this very instant. Besides, there’s just no need for my incredibly high expectations of myself to keep me from experiencing (and writing about) my sadness, fear, and confusion.

I’m doing better, my friends, but I think I’ll be up and down. I just really don’t like lack of closure. Or being out of control. And it seems like these can both contribute to the larger purpose here. I know that I’m learning right now. I just don’t know that I want to be.

Thanks to everyone who’s been out there being my eyes, ears, voice, etc. And thanks to everyone who’s been my shoulder to cry on. I’ll keep you posted.

Dearly Departed

2005-08-12T00:06:00.000-07:00

I write this to commemorate the life and death of Jinx to-Ennien Ross. Jinx has been a member of my family since I was eight years old, when my sister and I were allowed to pick out one free kitten to be our family pet. Of course, as sisters can never agree on much in childhood, we couldn’t pick just one. D’s recollection of the day is that I immediately ran to a cute-as-can-be white, black, and brown Calico, while she ran to a black and white sibling. Upon seeing the other’s kitten, we immediately traded and both of us fell completely in love. Of course, the power of persuasion behind two little girls’ puppy dog eyes combined was enough to make our parents allow us both kittens, and the day we got to bring them home was pure excitement for D and me. They fit in the palm of our hands when we brought them home with us. This is an amazing fact, if you knew them as adults.

D named Jinx after a character out of a favorite Star Trek book, and she was D’s cat through and through. As a female cat, she showed her affection in a way that was much different and not at all as codependent as Midnight showed his. But I remember walking into D’s room one afternoon when she wasn’t feeling well and finding Jinx there with her, tucked under her arm and cozy as could be with her adoptive mom. That image will never leave me.

She kept her distance from the rest of us for much of her life. She was by no means mean; rather, she knew what she liked and when she needed attention and she was otherwise a very independent spirit. In fact, she was much like the rest of the women in our family. After D left for college, Jinx began letting the rest of us in. Once I left, she absolutely became Mom’s little girl. As they both aged (Jinx and our mom), they both dropped some weight and developed thyroid conditions. D and I got much amusement out of the image of our mom and Jinx taking their pills together every morning. Even in this, she was a little brat. That cat knew very well how to spit out pills. She also knew how to finish all of the cheese in which the pill was wrapped. One of her favorite past-times throughout her life, in fact, was licking all of the cheese or salt or other flavoring off of whatever cracker we happened to be eating and leaving the rest on the floor.

In her old age, she adopted the dining room as her territory. She basically left it to eat and poop. She was the mistress of her domain and she knew it. So you can imagine her chagrin when D’s two younger kittens joined the family temporarily when D left for Australia. Amazingly, the kittens gently pulled Jinx out of her shell and engaged her in some playfulness that the family had not seen in a while. She perked up.

But not even young kittens could keep her from leaving this life. Our parents returned from a three-week vacation to Seattle and Sydney and found her almost unable to move. A visit to the vet this morning revealed that there was not much to be done and my parents decided that the most humane thing for her would be to let her go. They stayed with her and held her and she even purred a little. They said their goodbyes and then they let her go.

She lived a good long life in our family, having turned eighteen last month. She was a well-loved member of the family, another child to us all. She brought us laughter with her antics, her preferences, and her purrs. She is dearly missed.

Rest in peace, dear one.

Love, your aunt Angela

Powerless

2005-08-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

I am panicking. Right now it’s after midnight and I can’t turn off my brain. Nights are hard. It’s when all the noises and distractions of the day end and I’m trying to get to sleep. That’s when all the horrible thoughts creep in. I’ve cried myself to sleep every night since Monday. I really can’t bear to think of not seeing my dear Henry again. And I’m really trying to remain hopeful. But with every passing day not hearing a damn thing, it gets harder. I’ve been forced into this world that I don’t want to see. Every day, I obsessively check all of the listings I know of lost and found animals. Thus, every day, I am reminded that many are never found. I can’t handle being so far away. I just want to be out there looking, calling him, knocking on every door in an area that may possibly have had some sightings. I want to know where the signs are hung. I want to control. And I can’t.

I’m angry. I’m angry that I wasn’t told that he was missing for a full week. I’m angry that I will never know if I could have helped sooner. I don’t believe there was any malice involved in not telling me; I just wonder if I could have done more.

Tonight, I am freaking out about Faith Abigail. Patrick has assured me that she is safe, but tonight I got scared about it. Just a bad feeling. I’m trying to put it to rest. I tried to call Patrick and he didn’t answer. That’s even more scary, as last time he didn’t answer his phone, I ultimately discovered that he had been missing Henry. So it doesn’t help me get to sleep.

I need help finding the meaning in all of it. I fluctuate from being so angry at myself for taking them out of their space of my apartment and leaving them with someone they didn’t know that well; to being angry at my job for telling me I had to go away for a full month; to being angry at Patrick for whatever reason. I recognize that none of this is productive or helpful. I’m trying to be at peace and to stay positive and to remain hopeful. But this is my family. And I can’t handle this. I’ve often thought that it’s the not knowing that’s hardest, and this is no different. Murray’s death was vastly easier than this, in that it was something I understood, it was something spiritual and beautiful, and it was something with closure. At this time, I have no idea what’s happening to my little boy. I can only hope and pray that he’s okay.

I fucking hate that I’ve done all I can at this point. There’s nothing more to keep me busy. I’ve contacted every shelter I can find, I’ve posted notices on every website I can think of, I’ve paid for ads in the papers, I’ve sent pictures and descriptions to go into new signs, I’ve e-mailed and called all of my friends, I’ve asked for help. I’m checking every website and very dear friends are searching, hanging signs, and checking the local shelters. And I’m here just trying to get some sleep.

On Monday when Patrick told me, I called Dianne. I realized almost immediately that I would need some supportive clarity around this. Her outgoing message informed me that she is out of the office until this coming Monday. I left her a message saying that I was having a hard day and that I was having a hard time seeing what the universe was intending with this. I’m trying to let go of some of my need to know and understand, but I’m really having a hard time with it.

Every time my phone rings, I hope that it’s someone calling to say they found Henry. Everything would just feel better if that were the case.

Today the ringing phone brought more difficult news: Jinx passed away today.

It’s been a hard week.

Henry

2005-08-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

This is a plea, my friends. The third member of my original little family ran away six days ago. Henry is a cream-colored, bright blue-eyed Siamese mix, who is full of nothing but love. He walks with a limp, as his left shoulder has been previously dislocated and has healed slightly higher than his other shoulder. He also has completely healed scarring on his back that is visible when you ruffle his fur, as it is a fairly large bald spot. He has huge blue eyes, a skinny little snake-like tail, and a big body. He is approximately 15 pounds on a 10-pound frame, with a big round belly. He is a compulsive licker and he almost never stops purring. He is a little skiddish, however, and may struggle a little if you try to pick him up, but he is completely friendly and lovable and should not try to bite or hurt anyone. He meows a lot too. He rides very well in cars without a carrier, so if anybody happens upon him, feel free to get him in your car.

Henry was staying with my friend Patrick during my hiatus and was there for less than a week before escaping out a window. He has been missing since August 1-3 (Patrick said six days ago). Patrick lives in the Greenlake area on the corner of 80th and Greenlake Way or something like that. Apparently, Henry might have been last seen in a neighborhood approximately three blocks north of there.

I know I don’t have too many readers in Seattle. But please please PLEASE, if you happen to see Henry wandering around, get in touch with me ASAP. I know many of you either live near or frequent the Greenlake area.

My fear is that he’s disoriented and doesn’t know where he is or where to go, as he is not at all familiar with Patrick’s neighborhood. I am not slated to return to Seattle until the end of the month, but if anyone wants to help put up signs or check local shelters for me (in addition to what Patrick is already doing), be in touch.

And also, just this once, just for Henry, say a short prayer to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. I'm not Catholic, and I'm not necessarily a prayer, but you just never know....

Where Have All the Angelas Gone?

2005-08-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

Wow. It’s been a long time and I can feel it in my blood, my bones, and my being. I have missed writing and have sensed that, like running, I just really need to make it a priority. But when there’s a super-wonderful girl in Denver who wants to talk to you all the time and make you smile a lot, you just start to prioritize that over staring into your stark-white computer screen and processing shit.

Not to mention life. I guess it should come as no surprise to me, as “relaxing summer” has always been an oxymoron in my life – even when I was in school and had the summers “off”. This is my fourth summer (!) as a working woman and the very first one that I haven’t coveted daily the vacation time earned by the friends and family who either work for schools or are still in school. This summer has been weird in that it’s really felt no different than any other time of the year. I really can’t decide if that makes me feel relieved or really really sad.

A lot has happened this summer, as I’m sure you all can imagine, considering that there’s been nothing new here since late June. The concrete things that have happened are as follows: I spent April in the DC area for work. While there, I met an amazing woman with whom I ultimately (yup – I really am about to say it) fell in love. Since my return from DC, I have basically had extensive phone time with this beautiful girl on a daily basis. That has taken up a lot of my time. In the middle of May, I spent six days with my dear friend Jessica in Tucson. At the end of May (just after both of my cats came down with fleas and tape worms), Faith made her way to me for five fun-filled days in Seattle. June was intended to be relatively quiet and focused on catching up and/or getting ahead with work. (As a sidenote, that’s not possible with this or so many other jobs, so I really don’t know why I ever kid myself into thinking that it is.) There were some fun birthdays to be celebrated and some funner hikes (yes, I know it’s “not a word”). But then two days after Faith left the country, my mother ended up in the hospital. (I realize that, up to now, all of this has been recap, but I also realize that a) I’m hard to keep track of and b) many of my friends have poor memories.) Seattle Pride festivities (I actually got to be a “real” lesbian this year!) kept me busy the last weekend in June and then I was off to Jenn’s wedding by way of home-sweet-home: the Quad Cities (Davenport/Bettendorf, IA, Moline/Rock Island, IL). The experience was emotional for a variety of reasons all creating different emotions and I have so much to say about the wedding, weddings in general, and being “home” that I want to save it for a better, more articulate time. But never NEVER stay at a Days Inn. Ever. I’ll post the letter that I’m composing for the Cleveland, OH, area Better Business Bureau when it’s finished. Please save yourselves the horror. I just have so much to say about my time in the Midwest. Sigh. We’ll get there, I promise. So, anyway, I get back from there on Tuesday and by Friday night, a fucking SUV (seriously is there a theme?) runs a red light and almost totals my car. I’m okay, but I was very shaken and very disappointed in the King County Sheriff’s Deputy’s response (he told me to drive my car home). Additionally, I haven’t seen my car since then. The shop had it for over three weeks and then I had to leave, so I won’t see my dear Emi until the very end of August. But we’ll get there too. Anyway, one week after my return from the Midwest, I departed Seattle in my rental car for Yellowstone National Park. There I got to see my girlfriend again and we spent five wonderful days camping, sightseeing, walking around, eating, snuggling, bathing in rivers, seeing geysers and hot springs (though I did make Faith miss the eruption of Old Faithful on her very first visit to the park… Oops), sleeping in, and just relaxing. It was truly amazing. I was DIRTY when I got home. And it was fabulous! The day after I returned from Yellowstone, my parents arrived. They were here for one week, leaving on a Monday, and by Thursday I was on a plane flying to Denver. My first visit there and it, too, was lovely. I even went into the office to warn the supervisor that I would likely request a transfer in the not-too-distant future. That was very nerve-wracking for me, but Faith has been nothing but supportive and understanding of my fear of commitment, which has allowed it to not cause problems. I was in Denver until Sunday, at which time I got a new rental car and drove to Albuquerque. I am here now and will be until the end of August. Work. Again.

The not-so-concrete things are my process, and you can well imagine there’s a lot of it. I’ve had a lot on my mind, from my feelings for Faith to processing my time in the place I grew up to working through some difficult relationships to my future to my experience of complete disempowerment through a series of uncomfortable situations in which I was able to find my voice only to discover that no one would listen to it to thoughts on my family to little sleep and lots of travel to to to…. You get the picture.

I want to be more present here. I think I need to be. It’s amazing how it just flows once I get started. I just need to make the time to get started. I need to turn off the television, turn off my work computer, tell Faith I’ll talk to her later, kick back, and here we go….

Current Events

2005-06-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

You need to read this. We all need to be aware of actions (or inactions) such as these.

Temper Tantrum

2005-06-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those days that I would give just about anything to be six years old again, but just for a few minutes. And in those few minutes, I want to throw a HUGE temper tantrum. It will be complete with tears till my face is blotchy, fists and feet pounding the floor or bed till I don’t have the energy, and SCREAMING horrible ugly things like, “I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU” to no one in particular till it’s all out of my system. As I am no longer six years old, this sort of behavior just isn’t appropriate anymore. Of course you could argue that this behavior is never appropriate, but I might beg to differ. Because, as I was driving home after another long frustrating day at work, I suddenly thought that everything might feel a lot better if I just threw a temper tantrum. A big noisy attention-grabbing one that people would notice.

I want to scream about how STUPID it is that my rent just got raised. I want to yell and cry about how DIFFICULT it is to work for someone who is less competent than I am. I want to COMPLAIN about how I just want to be in Denver or near Faith or in school already or whatever. I want to WHINE about how unfair life can be sometimes. I want to be REALLY OBNOXIOUS for about ten minutes and just purge my entire being of the frustration and negativity that it currently houses.

And then I want to be back to my normal, happy-go-lucky, cheerful, optimistic, twenty-five-year-old self.

You Just Never Know

2005-06-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

One of the many things in my life that I am noticing and trying to work on right now is my tendency toward anger. I don’t consider myself to be an angry person – and I certainly have never become violent – but more and more I am noticing that I get very angry about things that are completely beyond my control. From experiencing road rage to needing to vent about work for days on end, I can occasionally let my anger invade my life.

I believe anger serves a purpose. I completely agree with the saying, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” There is a LOT in this world to be very angry about. I believe that the initial experience of anger can and often does move a person to action. Whether that action is voting, making a charitable donation, organizing a protest, trying to help someone in need, or simply having a conversation (or several) to make other people aware of an unjust situation, I believe anger can be a very powerful and useful force in this day and age. On a more personal level, anger has often served as my first sign that I’m experiencing some intense emotion about something. Anger is an emotion borne of fear, sadness, and/or pain. Therefore, when I notice myself becoming unreasonably angry about something or other, it forces me to step back and take inventory. As a thinking person, I often lose sight of my emotions – and particularly when those emotions are sadness, disappointment, anxiety, or fear. Anger helps me recognize that other emotions are present and allows me room to acknowledge and address them.

On the other hand, I believe anger can be quite detrimental to life. I realize that my being angry about something out of my control does nothing other than make me upset (and often the people around me who are forced to sit through my venting). I also understand that negativity begets negativity and I strongly believe in the intense power of energy, so it doesn’t help the universe much when I stew too long in my anger. Particularly when a situation is beyond my control. Because in these instances, there is nothing I can do to change the situation, so my only option is to change my thinking about it. I am learning that this is not as easy as it seems.

I went to Dianne a few months ago and I asked her to help me with this. I explained that I have become much more compassionate for people who make unhealthy decisions for themselves, and I can even approach a person who has hurt me with compassion, so long as I’m taking care of myself. I have been far more compassionate with myself and my own shortcomings. But I struggle to have compassion for people who make decisions which adversely affect everybody else on this planet. How can I have compassion for someone who chooses to drive a gas-guzzling S.U.V., even in this time of war for oil and global warming? How can I have compassion for a political administration that takes us to war with no good cause? How can I be compassionate toward his supporters, even as they’re carrying banners announcing their intent to restrict my rights to choose (from reproductive choice to freedom of marriage)? How can I feel compassion for this society, where situations like the genocide in Darfur and the horror in Rwanda are allowed to occur mostly without consequence or intervention? How can I be compassionate toward a village in a foreign land that punishes a man’s crime by ordering the gang rape of his sister? How can I feel compassion for the new pope, who irresponsibly advises religious leaders of five prominent African nations to insist that their congregants avoid using condoms to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS? There is a lot to be angry about and, at this point in my life, I refuse to buy the excuse of ignorance. The information is out there, people, and it’s not even that difficult to obtain.

But what do I do with the anger?

Dianne agreed that compassion is often difficult, but informed me that she often gets past it by reflecting on her spiritual beliefs. That is to say, Dianne is Buddhist. She believes in reincarnation and that her one life has been continuous in one form or another from the beginning of time. She argues that, if that’s true, she has had time to be all of these things that I speak out against now: she has likely been a murderer, a slave owner, a rapist, an S.U.V. driver, a polluter, a bad politician, and so on. In this life and many previous, she has just managed to overcome whatever destruction her past lives have caused. Her compassion for people comes from her belief that they are doing the best that they can with what they have and what they know in this life. How beautiful is that? I truly believe that Jessica’s bumper sticker is right: Compassion is revolution.

As I was driving home today, my cell phone rang. I answered it and, knowing that it was a work phone call and that I might need to write some information down, I immediately pulled to the side of the road. I was in an area with both residences and businesses and the road had ample space for parallel parking, but few open spots. I chose to pull over in front of a business (not blocking the door or driveway) in a space that had a “No Parking” sign overhead. I was not obstructing traffic, as I was completely off the road, and I kept checking to see that I was not obstructing the business in any way either. Midway through my brief (less than three minutes total) phone conversation, I became aware of honking behind me. I glanced up at my rearview mirror to see a Chevrolet Suburban very close to my rear bumper with a man gesticulating wildly and screaming out his window. He was screaming at me to read the *&%$ sign and MOVE. I chose to completely ignore him, which presumably made him even angrier. He continued to lay on his horn (I rolled up all my windows trying to block out the noise) and scream as loudly as he could out of his window. He was ANGRY.

I thought a couple of things: 1) I was shocked that this man seemed to honestly believe that this behavior was a) appropriate, b) acceptable, and c) going to cause a change in whatever it was that I was doing to make him so angry; and 2) you just never know. This man had no idea whatsoever whether I had a gun and was just crazy enough to use it. He had no idea if I was going to get out of my car and have an all-out brawl with him. He likely did not know or even consider the fact that I carry a badge. I might have been his new neighbor or his new boss. Or I might have just received a phone call telling me that I had lost someone I loved.

And then I thought: I’m a hypocrite. Because I never know. When I experience feelings of anger and frustration at someone who makes a stupid or dangerous move on the road, I don’t know if they just blew a tire or got an emergency phone call. I can’t know what each and every person is dealing with in her/his personal life that causes her/him to act whatever way, on the road or otherwise. And what good does it do anyway to be THAT angry? I saw myself in his gestures, and I certainly heard my own honking horn.

I thought about it the whole way home. I realized, again, that I default to becoming angry at people who make different choices than I would. For example, one of my neighbors drives a Suburban (recurring theme much?). I have a problem with that. Yet, I’m confused by it because she’s this super-funky looking woman with a lot of political stickers on the back of her Suburban admonishing the “war for oil”, supporting John Kerry, and proclaiming “Bush must go!” Some of her signs are hand-written and haven’t moved for months, if not years. So why, then, would this seemingly cool lady with political views very much in line with my own choose to drive an S.U.V.? I wondered right up until I noticed her license plate: “4MYK9S.”

I don’t need to know all the answers. Nobody owes me explanations for the choices they make. But sometimes it’s important for me to remember that people do have reasons, whether or not I know them. If I can just keep this fact in mind, I can respond with some understanding and without anger. This, my friends, might just be compassion burgeoning in front of your very eyes.

Confrontations

2005-06-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here confronting my mother’s mortality, and it is not fun.

I received a phone call from my father between 9:30 and 10 this morning informing me that my mother was in the emergency room. He had been called to the school where my mother works because she was in such severe pain she needed to get to a doctor. He took her to a doctor, who sent her immediately to the emergency room. They put her on medication to soothe her pain and believed the issue to be kidney stones. They wanted to run an MRI to make sure. My father would call me back when he knew anything else. They’re both okay.

At 1:35 this afternoon, my phone rang again. My father told me that my mom was in the operating room. The test results had showed very minor kidney stones that were definitely not causing the problem. The surgeon now wondered if it was her appendix that was causing the problem. Best case scenario: they’ll see that the appendix is enlarged and will remove it; the whole procedure will take a half-hour. Worse case scenario: the appendix burst and it will take them several hours to clean up the infection. Worst case scenario: it’s not her appendix. My father would call me back when he knew anything else. She’s okay when she’s not in excruciating pain. He’s feeling anxious.

I commented to him that the tables are turned on this one. In my family, we’ve become far more accustomed to my father being in the hospital or undergoing test after test after test. His health has not been great for many years and, though it’s never easy or fun, I can at least understand that my father’s presence in the doctor’s exam room can likely be narrowed down to one of several causes – all of which I already know about. My mother is a different story. She is not a woman who goes to the doctor. She does not take sick days. She bears the pain and remains stoic and doesn’t talk about it.

Hearing my father talk about her pain today scared me. It scared me in the same way that I was scared several years ago watching him struggle with the pain while recovering from his open heart surgery. I was scared in the way that keeps me silent, for fear that opening my mouth would allow sobs to escape to acknowledge a truth I couldn’t accept. We never expect to see our parents in these situations, and yet most of us do at one point or another. Life is funny like that: we will naturally outlive our parents. Yet how do any of us prepare ourselves to watch our parents experience aging and ultimately death, gracefully or otherwise?

Today was an interesting mental exercise for me. I realized the terror that my father must have felt watching my mom go through this and relatively alone. He was the only family member close enough to be with her and I have never in my life felt so far away. Therefore, during my brief conversations with my dad, I didn’t allow myself to express fear. I was trying to be strong and calm for him, and I’ve no doubt he was doing the same for me. I then tried to be strong and calm for me and did my best to distract myself with work. I was mostly successful until I realized that several hours had come and gone after my last conversation with him and I still knew nothing. I composed an e-mail, wherein I wrote, “My mother is in surgery right now,” and I burst into tears at the sight of it.

I started thinking about how my mother is the backbone of my family. Her strength never falters and she holds us all together. When the rest of us are afraid, my mother is reassuring. When the rest of us are angry, my mother remains calm. When the rest of us are sick, my mother takes care of things. When the rest of us are tired, my mother puts us to bed. When the rest of us are crying, my mother sets her jaw. She is an amazing woman, my mother, and the thought of her struggling in a hospital bed is one of the scariest thoughts I can think.

She is okay now and resting in the hospital. She had a ruptured appendix and they took several hours cleaning up the infection. I am still shaken and drained from the day. I can only imagine what my dad must be feeling. Our conversations were brief, but I got a glimpse of his mental state when I told him to tell Mom that she is not allowed to scare me like that again. My dad responded: “It’s not always about you, Angela. I was really scared too.” I think both of our voices displayed a mixture of relief and fear. After all, I think today was the first day we had ever truly confronted the concept of losing her, and it was not fun.

Am I Crazy, Oh Great Horoscope? Am I?

2005-06-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Fools rush in where wiser types refuse to tread. However, it's also true that sometimes wiser types are just a bunch of old fuddy-duddies who don't know how to loosen up and have a good time. So if you're presented with an outrageous opportunity that you're hesitating about, ask yourself this: Are you just the teeniest, tiniest bit intrigued? If the answer is yes, maybe this situation deserves another look, hmmm?

Stream of Consciousness (Of Sorts)

2005-06-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

I really did not want to run today. I mean, I REALLY did not want to run today. But my neck tweaked out again on Wednesday and, now that I gave up my free weekly massages because I’m all better (famous last words), the only thing that seems to help loosen things up is running. So, after much silent whining about it, I got myself out there to jog. I was feeling particularly self-conscious as I left my house: I wear Spandex to go running (and though we all know that Spandex is not for everyone, I’m a firm believer that Spandex is, in reality, not for anyone), I have a big hole in the inner thigh of these particular Spandex shorts, the shirt that I’m wearing is a little too short for me to be comfortable in said Spandex, and I’ve managed to turn a prominent section of my face bright red by trying to squeeze an uncomfortable pimple. But off I go, onto the major street through my neighborhood to see and be seen and hopefully not remembered.

I stepped off my block to three cars carrying approximately twenty-seven frat-looking white boys who are hanging out of the windows of their respective vehicles. Considering that I live in a relatively quiet neighborhood that, while certainly housing its share of very rich white former frat boys, seems to have a dearth of current frat boys, this was an unusual sight. One of the more bizarre things about the experience was that there was no noise. There was no loud music blaring from the cars and no voices either. The approximately twenty-seven frat-looking white boys were completely silent as they drove around the neighborhood merely LOOKING rambunctious. That was creepy.

Of course, as I noticed myself looking over my shoulder to make sure that none of these frat-looking white boys wanted to get rambunctious with me, I remembered the myriad conversations I’ve had with my friends wherein we’ve discussed that we are more fearful of our safety when interacting with frat boys than when walking past a park alone at night. That seems sick and wrong. And yet, most of us have studied the stats and know where our real risk lies.

I got nearly two blocks into my jog and got angry. I run in a very residential area where driveways crisscross the sidewalk from one end to the other. Most residents realize that the sidewalks are public property and are careful to park their vehicles on one or the other side of the sidewalks, so as not to block passage for pedestrians, joggers, bicyclists, etc. I have never had a problem with this until today, when there was a car parked such that it completely and unapologetically blocked the entire sidewalk. Okay, you say, so pretty easy to go around. Except that another car parked in the very same driveway and presumably belonging to the very same house was parked right next to that car and was pulled up about half the length of the first car. You couldn’t get around the violating car by moving closer to the house as there was yet a third car parked there, too close to the other car to squeeze between the bumpers, and too close to the house to get around it. And to get around the car the other way, you had to walk all the way down to the road (the horror!). So really, to get around the stupid car, you had to go around the front of the minivan (which was appropriately parked), squeeze between the driver’s side door of the minivan and the rear right passenger door of the offending vehicle, around the butt of the evil car, through some mud and back onto the sidewalk.

I wanted to hail a police officer to request the car be granted a ticket by Seattle’s best (and I don’t mean coffee) for obstructing the public sidewalk.

I then spent my next several strides contemplating how much I really dislike people.

And then I was smiling again. Because, you see, there is a gentleman who lives ½ mile away from my house. (I know it’s ½ mile because he lives two to three doors north of the stop sign that is exactly ½ mile from the stop sign that is two to three doors south of me.) And during the summer months, he sits out on his door step and he plays the banjo. It makes me really happy. Considering that it’s been winter since last October, I haven’t seen him in a while and had nearly forgotten about him. But as I approached my half mile marker (the stop sign), I heard the familiar plucking of the ol’ banjo. I looked up as I jogged past and the gentleman totally recognized me and demonstrated this fact with a wide smile and a familiar neighborly, “Hey!”

I then spent my next several strides contemplating how much I really like people.

My jog continued this way: I almost got hit by a car at said stop sign when the woman failed to notice me. Then I got a big friendly smile and hello from someone walking a dog. Then I was forced to inhale the smell of fresh mulch. Then I saw a pierced tattooed boy who politely stepped off the sidewalk so I could pass. The bipolarity of life.

I love when people build huge houses on small lots such that every other house on the block looks puny and poor in comparison. Actually, I don’t like that at all. It didn’t help that the huge house built on a small lot was also causing the awful mulch smell. (As a side note, bad odors are hard to take anyway, but being exposed to bad odors when your lungs are fighting for oxygen in the midst of physical exertion is really not okay. People should be aware of this fact. Especially people who smoke on jogging trails. WTF?)

I haven’t shaved my legs since May 27. I did on that day because Faith was arriving. (And I wore a skirt because I felt like it.) Every good girl knows that shaving is the polite thing to do when expecting overnight guests. So I did. And that was wonderful, but when I was going to shave again the requisite two to three days later, Faith was distressed because there wasn’t much to shave and she expressed genuine concern that my skin might get irritated if I try. (Do you love this girl?) So I didn’t. And then I haven’t. No reason; no method to the madness. Almost laziness more than anything. But also a desire to remember precisely what my body looks like, in all its magnificent naturalness.

I’m thinking about moving to Denver. I mean, I’m really thinking about it. That is fascinating and bizarre to me. Don’t misunderstand: I don’t mean tomorrow and I don’t mean for forever. As you all know, my school options are Tempe, Portland, and Seattle. And, as you all also know, I love Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. I’ve asked approximately thirty-nine people if they think I’m crazy. They have all said no. That too is fascinating.

In the past few days I’ve been thinking about today’s date: June 10. It’s funny, because in the past few days, I couldn’t stop thinking about today’s date. Yet today, I couldn’t remember today’s date. It took me until 2:45 this afternoon to remember today’s date and to put together that it could have something to do with my crankiness. Six months. It seems like so much has changed. It’s weird. But we both knew that it would and I did promise I would be okay. And I am.

If the shelter was accurate, Faith Abigail turns one this month. Happy Birthday, Miss.

And to my Murray-pants: I still miss you daily. Here’s to you.

I'm Lovin' It!

2005-06-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

So my cats have fleas AND tapeworms; I found out today that a friend has lung cancer; I’m in the running for a job with my company that I’m not sure I want; many of my friends and family are far far away; I don’t feel as if I’m pulling my weight at work; my plans for school have been pushed back another year; and all I can think about is how really really happy I am.

Arizona was amazing for me. I thought for a minute how wonderful it would be to be able to take Jessica and all of her amazing friends from there and relocate them to Seattle. Just add Faith and some Bard friends and maybe even toss my family a little closer to me and I would be in heaven.

I love it here. The night I flew back into Seattle, I didn’t even mind too much that Seatac International Airport took an unacceptably long time to get the luggage out, as usual. The sun was out – even at nearly 9 pm – and the mountain was out and the temperature was perfect and there was this really cute girl from Denver who sent me something like 12 text messages during my flight, which came to me one at a time for about 5 minutes. Patrick picked me up in full army fatigues and cracked me up and made me happy to remember how wonderful people can be. On our way into my neighborhood, I made him stop at a park I’ve never been to but have always been curious about and we found spectacular views of the mountain at dusk and we found a swing-set. Swinging is one of my favorite things and I think that as adults we need to do it way more often. So Patrick and I swung and swung for quite some time and I stood up the cute girl for our phone date, but she understood and thought it was lovely that I spent the time swinging. I couldn’t stop smiling. I rolled down the car window and screamed at the top of my voice, “I love this town!”

It’s true: I really love it. The geography is unbeatable, unbelievable, and almost unbearable in its beauty. I got 2 ½ days at home during which the weather remained absolutely gorgeous and I got to process my wonderful time in Arizona and prepare for a really exciting visit with Faith. I was still high at her arrival. I couldn’t help but grin and hug her and take her hand and hug her some more. The weather was perfect up until the last day of her visit. And the visit was wonderful. I almost have no words for it: there was no drama, no difficulty, no discomfort. It was just spectacular and beautiful and wonderful and comfortable. And I felt great and unafraid and grounded and present and beautiful and excited and happy and all those things you’re supposed to feel when you’re in the midst of something good. So we took the opportunity to explore the area: Richmond Beach to Gasworks Park to REI to Rattlesnake Lake to Bizzarro’s to Bainbridge Island to Olympic National Park to Elwha Hot Springs to Seattle thrift stores to Safeco Field (the Mariners won, by the way) to the Crumpet Shop to Pike Place Market to American Apparel to Trader Joe’s. And I kept remembering why I live here. This place just amazes me.

I love my life. I love that I have befriended people for no apparent reason. From my very first Seattle friendship with Scott, who just happened to be driving the shuttle that day, I have managed to connect with really good people at every location I frequent. I am considered a VIP at my car dealership, receiving individual attention and tours from the head of the service department himself – only because I’m a good and loyal customer with a personality. I know most of the techs by name and they go out of their ways to do good work for me. I have found a good friend in the boy who works at my favorite pet food store. I’m in touch with the boy who works at my doctor’s office. I meet rock stars when they approach me at their shows. People talk to me at bars and restaurants and on the streets. At my final massage therapy session, my massage therapist asked if I wanted to be his friend. I played well with others in school and made some (hopefully) lasting friendships from there. An amazing and powerful friend of Jessica’s was moved enough to initiate contact with me after my departure from Tucson, just to tell me I’m a neat person.

I love that my favorite people from grade school, high school, college, and beyond have chosen to stay in touch with me. Against all odds, my friendships with people near and far have remained solidly in tact even through tremendous growth, challenge, and turmoil, not to mention crazy distance. I don’t know that you could have convinced me three years ago how close I would feel to Ali at this point in my life. And the fact that Chris Pappas remains ever close to me brings a smile to my face every time. He may literally be an angel, walking the earth amongst us mortals. And all the rest who check in with me and laugh with me and care about me and cry with me and KNOW me from as early as third grade.

These are good people, and their interest in being my friends makes me really happy. The challenges they create for me and the support they provide blows my mind.

I’m really happy right now. I’m making good and compassionate decisions for myself. I’m feeling open to others and to myself. People seem to be noticing and reflecting it back to me. I’m being nurtured by those around me and it’s allowing me to reconnect in a healthy way with the nurturer in me. Even though I’m busy and sleepy and have a lot on my mind, I feel really healthy and grounded. And by making good choices for myself and by learning how to ask for what I need and how to find my voice, I’m able to find a lot more energy to love those around me.

Thank you to my friends and to my city: You’re beautiful and I love you all!

Drawn

2005-05-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

I made an important and (hopefully) life-changing realization about myself several weeks ago. I realized that I am drawn to unhealthy people. That is to say, I am drawn to people who are not healthy for me to be around. I think I’ve always known this on some level of my consciousness, but I’ve only recently been able to see how I might try to make some positive changes.

What I know is that I’ve had a lot of drama in my life. And, while I realize I can create my fair share of it, I truly believe that the vast majority is just drawn to me. I am, some would say, a drama magnet. But I must take some responsibility for my surroundings and, therefore, I acknowledge that I invite drama into and allow it to remain in my life. I’ve always been able to identify situations that are not so healthy for me; my problem has always been knowing how and when to move on.

It’s not difficult to see my pattern: I’ve selected gamblers, cheaters, addicts/alcoholics, depressives, and other generally unhappy people – and all this in my relatively short dating life. Until very recently, I had never chosen to date a person who could give me what I needed in the way of support for, or even interest in, the goings-on of my life. All of my “relationships” have had a large imbalance of giving and taking. While I’m sure that anyone I’ve “dated” would argue that I take what I need when I need to and that I don’t generally allow myself to be a doormat, I know that I have been able to provide support, guidance, insight, and interest to people that could not necessarily do the same for me.

I am drawn to people because of what I believe their potential to be. I operate on the assumption that everyone wants to live life to the fullest and to be as healthy as possible. I am drawn to the good in a person, even when the goodness comes out in rare glimpses that few ever see. I am drawn to the light I see in people, even as they are making unhealthy choices for themselves. I am drawn to vulnerability and pain, only insomuch as I want to help a person through it. I thrill in the success of my friends and loved ones, and I see potential in people who do not see it in themselves. I can see strength, grace, and wisdom in people who are struggling to find the ground.

None of this is bad. But what I realized just this past month is that it’s not up to me. And my tendency to think that it might be is not only exceptionally egotistical, but also creates insanely unrealistic expectations of myself.

I don’t become involved with anyone with the intention of changing her/him. (Even I am old enough to know that such endeavors don’t work and merely create bitterness and resentment.) However, I hold great hope for the people I am with. I want every person – and certainly those with whom I’m spending a good deal of time – to recognize her/his own inherent goodness and beauty. While I understand that a person really needs to look inward to grasp such a thing, I think sometimes we all need a little help from our friends to see it. I think that I am drawn to people who need a little help to see it. And when they enter my life, I expect myself to be able to show it to them. I believe that my friend or lover should be able to see her/his own wonderfulness just by virtue of being my friend. The very fact that there is a good soul in the world who cares about your happiness, well-being, health, wealth, etc., should be enough to demonstrate that these are incredibly important things and that you are an incredibly important person. The fact that I am making choices for myself to help get me out of unhappy relationships, friendships, careers, etc., should help you find your inspiration to do the same.

What I’ve realized, though, is that I don’t get to make this choice for anyone else. I think I may sometimes stay in touch with people or continue spending time with them in the hope that they will strive to be more like me in making choices that would make them happier. But I don’t get to choose for whom I am an inspiration. I don’t get to decide who might follow my example or, for that matter, who believes my example might be worth following. And that’s okay with me.

It’s also okay to let people go. Sometimes I need to protect myself from people who aren’t ready to see or examine their own goodness so that I don’t fall into the pitfall of trying to force change or movement. I have finally realized that often I can’t do this without a complete separation. I get too attached, too involved, and too invested in people. My feelings for my friends make it difficult for me to detach from the choices they make that I consider to be unhealthy, self-destructive, or just not in line with what I need from them. And therefore, every contact becomes me worrying about them, reaching out, trying to help them see how amazing they really are. And that’s draining for me. So, sometimes there is a need to end contact, at least temporarily. Because otherwise, I realized, I will get drawn right back into it. I will continue expending energy to try to show how amazing I think someone is, and I will continue feeling disappointed in myself for not being able to do it. I will constantly be focused on the potential rather than the person in front of me. And that’s unfair to me and unfair to whomever I’m interacting with at the time.

All I can hope is that, with these realizations, I can separate and protect myself and end this draw with as much compassion and love for myself and for the other as I possess.

And Also

2005-05-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

For those of you who might be following my very preliminary search for schools for naturopathic medicine, my visit with SCNM yesterday was very nice. The school had great energy and would provide a great education, I’m sure, but I have much to think about and plenty of time. For one thing, SCNM does not offer a dual degree program in naturopathic medicine and acupuncture, which is something that I might want. They do, however, link up with a nearby program with the Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine and Acupuncture, such that students are able to get their N.D. from SCNM and their M.S.Ac.O.M. from PIHMA. So it is an option. The other tricky thing for me is that the state of Arizona allows N.D.s to practice medicine with almost as much freedom as a M.D. Therefore, SCNM does not provide certification or licensing in anything outside the N.D. degree (to include massage therapy, midwifery, or any other thing that might interest me), although students are allowed to have a “focus” area (such as midwifery, nutrition, women’s integrated health, etc.) while obtaining a N.D. This is because state law in Arizona allows for N.D.s to deliver babies or prescribe any medications, etc., etc., without such licensing or certification. For me, this would mean that I would need to figure out how to obtain the required certification for any other state I might like to practice in. Which may prove to be quite difficult, or may be quite simple.

I did learn that there are a total of 6 accredited naturopathic schools in North America; 4 are in the United States. So my options are Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Tempe, AZ; or Bridgeport, CT. And I’ll probably nix Bridgeport from the list only because I have no interest in living in the northeast again (no offense to all my nor-easters out there). Considering that Seattle and Portland are probably my two favorite cities in the U.S., Tempe has a bit of a hard sell. But they also have some really exciting things happening and it might be enough….

SCNM has one of the top five ranked cadaver labs in the United States. I went in during my tour and it truly was amazing. Additionally, seven of their basic science professors have their Ph.D.s and the average number of years teaching for their faculty is fifteen years. Their president is a N.D. and also happens to be president of ANMC, and the vice president of the council is the V.P. of enrollment services. This all means that SCNM seems to be a hotbed of political activism and lobbying for issues involving the state of naturopathic medicine throughout the U.S. So, there it is. More to come on my thoughts in the distant future, I’m sure….

Welcome to the Desert

2005-05-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

I landed in the desert of Tucson, AZ, on Wednesday night. I am here to see Jessica, my dear friend who left Seattle and me almost a year ago. She left her job as a cop to venture into the unknown – to face her fears and discover her truth – as a relatively unemployed art student. She’s beautiful and talented and strong and creative and I love her. It has been amazing to be here. She has done well for herself in the midst of a lot of difficult, challenging, growth opportunities, and her grace and groundedness now are incredible to behold. I have been completely blown away by how much she is loved and supported here. She has truly welcomed a community of people who look after her and care deeply for her, and this is beautiful to see, knowing her former difficulty in letting people in. I flew in late Wednesday night and by 7:30 Thursday morning, Jessica’s phone was ringing with people wanting to meet me. Heidi was here by 7:40, followed by others who came to say hello, hug, and chat for a bit while Jessica and I were still in our pajamas with sleep crusted around our eyes. After meeting several other people at coffee shops and at Jessica’s former work place, we left to drive to Tempe so that I could check out the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and Health Sciences. On the drive alone, I lost count of how many additional people called to make sure that they would have an opportunity to meet me. It is so clear how much these people love her and how important it is for them to meet me, just because I am so important to her.

I went with Jessica to an AA meeting today. The growth and potential for growth in that room was palpable. People said some very powerful things and I was honored to be allowed to sit in and listen and absorb and observe these people at their most vulnerable and at their strongest, all at the same time. Spiritual awakening was the name of the game and I could relate to the struggles being discussed, like not feeling “right-sized” and feeling overwhelmed by a sudden and unexpected flood of emotions when dealing (or not dealing) with difficult situations.

At the end of the meeting, Jessica’s sponsor approached me, shook my hand, said simply, “You have a beautiful mind,” and then walked away. I usually come up with some joke to brush aside complements, but he walked away before I could say anything. I thought little of it, assuming that he had heard Jessica say some nice things about me, only to discover that Jessica had never really talked about me before, other than mentioning that I was coming to town and that we were friends, etc. He later informed her that he saw something in me – a light in my eyes – something wonderful and powerful and beautiful to him and he assured her that I would be successful in anything I took on. When he said goodbye to me shortly thereafter, he shook my hand again and said warmly, “I won’t wish you good luck or best wishes because you really don’t need them.”

I started to cry.

It affects me on a truly profound (and often uncomfortable) emotional level when someone sees me clearly – and likes what s/he sees. Complements make me very nervous and I don’t handle them well. I’ve lived my whole life believing that I’m a fake, a poseur, that my outside persona is merely a façade and that the walls are about to crumble. I fear that when the foundation starts to crack, people will see the real me and will decide that they don’t like me any more. I feel like I’m in a constant race to outrun “reality” and I’m just waiting to trip and fall on my face. I have always done very well in school, but I’m convinced that I’ve just randomly managed to fool all of my teachers and professors into believing I’m smart. When people tell me I’m a good person, my brain identifies a million reasons why I’m not. When somebody I really like seems to really like me back, I can’t help but wonder why. I have to do better and better, because I’m always trying to prove that I am as smart or as good or as nice or as whatever as people seem to think I am.

But sometimes, a person just grabs hold of my heart and my brain doesn’t even have time to react. And then I cry. In one of our wonderful ever-clarifying sessions, Dianne told me that I was very good at something. I tried to dodge the complement by stating that it was a fluke. She instructed me to say thank you. That was hard. Last month, Jessica was telling me how much she appreciates having me in her life and how amazing she thinks I am. I tried to say thank you and I started to cry. The other week, the very perceptive Faith said really nice things to me (as always) and noticed that I have a very hard time hearing such things about myself. I fought to hold back tears. Today, Jessica’s sponsor saw right to my soul and thought it a beautiful thing and the tears came running.

Dianne believes that my tears come almost out of relief, because I am finally open to acknowledging that maybe I am as good as people think. Just maybe I am finally beginning to see that maybe I am a warm, caring, loving, compassionate, smart, nice, good person who is doing the best I can. And just maybe my best is pretty darn good. I am learning to be more open to myself and to my own goodness. As always, just when I really need to learn something important, the universe delivers help to show me the way. Right now, it’s coming in the form of truly amazing, honest, clear people constantly reminding me about my true self.

My sister, D, sent me a random forward today that said that people are like apples and that the best people are at the top of the tree. When people begin looking for others to date, they are often afraid to climb to the top of the tree for fear of falling and hurting themselves. As a result, the people at the top of the tree begin to wonder if there is something wrong with them because nobody wants them. In reality, the forward advises, those at the top just have to wait for an amazing, strong, brave person to come along and get to the top of the tree. I read this and smiled as I thought of Faith’s recent appearance in my life. I have no doubt that it’s part of the reason she’s here right now: this girl from the top of the tree has made it over to my treetop to help me see who I really am. She and all of the other amazing people in my life, both old and new, help me see a little bit more clearly every single day that I’m okay and that I’m clear and that I don’t have to keep racing quite so hard. And this is a relief worth shedding some tears over.

Queer

2005-05-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

I never dated before the age of 22. Sure, I had innocent school crushes ever since skating around the rink holding hands with Trent Mauser during the “Moonlight skate” in first grade. In fact, there have been few times since then that I haven’t had someone to distract my thoughts and occupy my over-active imagination. The thing is, though, that until I was 22, none of my crushes ever had a crush on me back.

I had never kissed or been kissed until just before my nineteenth birthday. And, having gotten through both high school and college with a total of four one-time only kisses under my belt, I truly began to contemplate my asexuality.

Don’t misunderstand: I have never been asexual to myself. I have always had a pretty good grasp of my own needs and desires and I’ve always been sexually attracted to other people. But it seemed that, for whatever reason, for a good chunk of my life, other people tended to view me as a girl without sexuality.

I remember being in ninth grade. I had just moved from Iowa to New Jersey and I was the new girl. No one knew anything about me and, depending on the day, they seemed completely disinterested or highly curious. I remember attending a school program that the district required in an attempt to get high-schoolers to “celebrate diversity.” Of course, a topic high on the presentation list was homosexuality. I think at that time I knew (and then only from a distance and through the ever-present rumor-mill) a total of one person who was gay. And he was weird. (And he never deserved the abuse that was lavished on him by other students, but that’s a whole other blog entry.) I wasn’t friends with him, but I wasn’t scared of him either. In fact, I always thought of him as a bit of a kindred spirit in the way of being “different.” I remember that the day of the diversity “celebration”, we were required to discuss the presentations we had just seen after we returned to class that afternoon. A boy in my class made some comment about how it really doesn’t bother him if someone is gay, he just wants to know about it. I asked him why. He said he just feels like he should know about it, but it wouldn’t bother him at all. I told him that I thought it was none of his business and that I thought there was some not-so-hidden motive behind his need to know about someone’s sexuality. I further told him that I don’t think that a person’s sexuality should be used to make a determination about that person’s character or whether he should or should not be friends with that person. And then I told him that he knows me (very minimally), that he had been in class with me daily for x number of months, that he has already decided exactly what he thinks of me based solely on my personality and my presence in class, and that he has no knowledge at all of my sexuality. I then asked him if his opinions of me would change if I told him I was gay. You can well imagine: the class fell silent. Finally, the boy said, “Well, are you?” I replied, “Does it matter?” He stammered, “Well, no. But are you?”

I never did answer his question and that move, combined with my tight circle of female friends, probably always left my classmates wondering. And keeping their distance.

I think it was around that time that my dad, pastor of a local prominently-located Presbyterian Church, received a phone call from a local gay rights group. The caller wanted to express how thrilled the group was that my dad chose to express solidarity with their cause by proudly flying a rainbow-colored flag off the front porch of the house. The parish, no less. Of course, my dad had no idea at that time what the rainbow symbolized; he just liked the flag. But, to his immense credit, he continued to fly the flag proudly, even after its symbolism was revealed.

My dad’s a pretty awesome guy, actually. Throughout my childhood, he was always very careful to speak all-inclusively. Even as a privileged white male (the unfortunate fact of which requires me to give him a great deal of grief sometimes), he recognized that people are different and that diversity truly should be celebrated. He never made assumptions about my or my sister’s sexual preference, nor did he assume that we would want the same things that he and my mother wanted: marriage and a family. From the time I was little, I can hear him saying things like, “If you ever decide that marriage is right for you….” and always being careful to say “he or she” when referring to a future mate.

Even so, it wasn’t until college that I had my first real crush on a girl. Paddy Kilrain. She was a rock star. And I liked her a whole lot. That is to say, she was the first woman that I could picture kissing. And I liked that a whole lot. Of course, Paddy was dating another truly amazing woman at the time, and I was blessed to become very good friends with both, though nothing romantic ever happened between Paddy and me. Despite my fortunate upbringing by open-minded supportive parents who truly meant and provided unconditional love, this first “homosexual” crush led to some soul-searching. Mostly, I was struggling with identity only insomuch as I didn’t want to identify. I wasn’t “gay,” but I wasn’t “straight” either. And I didn’t want to identify as “bi” because it wasn’t enough (I don’t really believe there are only two sexualities/genders/options) or it still didn’t seem to fit or something. So how, then, could I identify? What was I supposed to call myself? A few of my friends were playing with the term “omnisexual” to include sexual attraction to transgendered, transsexual, and all varieties of other-than-heterosexuals. I think the term’s interesting, but I’m not sure how easily I could use it without feeling misunderstood. I remember discussing all this with my dear friend Ava, who said, “I don’t think of you as having a sexuality. I think of you as being very attracted to energies. And it doesn’t seem to matter to you what form the energy comes in.” I really liked this. This became how I identified myself: I am attracted to energy.

When I moved to Seattle, my own sexuality and sexual attractiveness suddenly appeared in full force. For the first time in my life, everyone seemed to notice me. People gave me their phone numbers and asked for mine. I was taken out to dinner, for drinks, to listen to music. I kissed some more people. And the first person I ever dated was a woman. She was a dyke and I thrilled in the attention she paid to me. I knew we were not long-term compatible (for one thing, she wasn’t “out” at the time), but I really enjoyed the experience of dating a girl. I loved being able to operate with few assumptions as to who would do what in our brief relationship. I loved knowing where I stood with her, good or bad, because of the open communication. I loved the safety of just being with a woman. And then she nearly broke up with me simply because I had said yes when she asked me whether I was still attracted to men.

She couldn’t handle it, she told me, she felt threatened. She really could only be with someone who was a “real” lesbian. And that was hard for me. I was suddenly very uncomfortable expressing my attraction to both men and women. I felt like I was an outsider among lesbian women and a novelty to be objectified among heterosexual men. I recalled my friend Katy and her experience with something similar. All through college, she had been in with the campus lesbians. She had loved and dated women. She had come out to her family and her friends and she had fully adopted the identity of “lesbian” and even “dyke.” And then, during her last year in college, she found herself to be very attracted to men. She fretted about telling her friends, because of their judgment or their feelings of betrayal. I remember her saying one day how it was almost harder to come out as “straight” than it was to come out as “gay.” And suddenly, after my own girlfriend expressed disappointment in my true sexuality, I understood what Katy meant. I have yet to have a “straight” boy break up (or even want to break up) with me when I told him I’ve dated women. Yet, some of the women I’ve dated have freaked out when I’ve told them I’ve dated men. I get that, I do, but it’s hard and makes it very challenging to understand how to identify myself in the midst of it.

So I’ve been dating (or not-dating, whichever the case may be) some boys in the meantime. And that’s a truly different experience with its own joys and immense challenges. Some aspects of a romantic relationship with a boy are obviously simpler. And yet, in my experience, there have always been more games and less communication when I interact with men. There just seems to be so much fear of saying the wrong thing or expressing true feelings at the risk that they’ll be misinterpreted. Many men seem to believe (and are socialized to do so) that every woman is looking to “settle down”. And I think it keeps men from allowing themselves to simply say, “I like you.” So, when I date men, I miss the ability to communicate openly. I long for the opportunity to express myself fully and without fear that my thoughts will be misunderstood.

And just when I’m finding myself questioning the point once again, a woman appears in my life. She is open and present and honest and shy and smart and attentive and beautiful and funny and willing to laugh at my jokes and she follows the news and thinks critically and she’s trying to make the world a better place and I like her. And I get to tell her that as often as I want. And it doesn’t scare her or make her feel suffocated or stifled or like I’ve determined that I will therefore spend the rest of my life with her period the end. We talk and it’s good. For a minute, I had some fear about my identity as it related to her. I thought back to my earlier experience with Carolyn and I feared that Faith might be disappointed to remember/realize that I have dated both women and men in the past and might do so in the future. Yet, she knew who and how I was from the beginning and she thinks that’s okay. Her stance is one of, “That’s who you are and I like you.” It truly is a beautiful thing and it (and she) makes me smile.

*********************************************************************************

Queer. I discovered the word several years ago when some of my friends adopted it to describe their own sexualities. The word has historically been used to refer to homosexuals in a disparaging way. It is being reclaimed. The dictionary definition is “eccentric, unconventional.” This, more than any other term out there, feels like an accurate description of my sexual identity. I’m certainly not on the beaten path and I like being able to acknowledge that with one simple word. I like this word because it feels inclusive to me. It really explains nothing and expresses so much. I like identifying with the “queer” community and I like that this community encompasses so many different definitions of what “queer” really means. From transsexuals to fag hags, from dykes to flamers, from bears to lip stick lesbians, from bisexuals to bois, from nonmonogamy to heterosexual couples that find their own ways to challenge the norm, I believe there is a little “queer” in all of us.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve finally found an identity that allows me to answer: “Yes, Lance Lamarcka, I am. (But does it really matter?)”

Props to Chris...

2005-05-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

...who somehow always manages to find and share society's most amusing examples of rampant sexism.

I don't know about all the rest of ya'll "fashionable and sophisticated" ladies out there, but I'm about to git myself up outta this chair and go git me a new cellular phone. I'm just dyin' to know precisely how many calories I'm burnin' while doin' my womanly cookin' work. Not to mention my needin' to know on a minute by minute basis just how fat I am. Oh -- and I can't forget that the phone will have the magical capabilities of lettin' me know exactly when I'm gonna be moody or irritable, because I'm a woman, and, well, sometimes I let my hormones get the best of me.

Puh-lease.

Today

2005-05-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

Today is the four-month anniversary of Murray’s death. It’s amazing to me how, depending on the moment, this fact is either too easy or far too difficult for me to forget. I think about him all the time; yet, I also surprise myself to realize how much less it is now than when he first passed away. I guess that’s just how it works with time.

When he first died, I fell asleep every night thinking of him. Once I got his ashes back, I set the box on my bedside table and kissed it and told him I loved him every night before bed. I remember wondering how long I would keep that up. It’s no longer part of my nightly ritual, but there are still times that I picture him at his best and at his worst curled up with me at bedtime.

I thought of him last night, as I lay on the couch falling asleep. Henry took his usual spot on my stomach, while Faith Abigail tried to hash out her own space to snuggle. It made me think back to all the nights I spent with him on that couch, up to and including his very last, when he slept on my chest and I told him how much I loved him and how he could go whenever he needed to. I told him I would be okay and that so would he and so would Henry. We said our initial goodbyes in almost that very position.

I continued thinking of him last night after I crawled into bed. Henry and Faith Abigail were both trying to figure out how or even whether they wanted to cuddle. Henry has taken to spending at least part of the night on the very pillow that had been Murray’s. And Faith Abigail likes to curl up and put her back up against me in a way that reminds me of him. It’s not the same, nor should it be, but I miss him.

I’ve had an okay day today, but I began sobbing almost as soon as I started writing this. It amazes me how it can still affect me so intensely. And it also takes me by surprise every time how badly I need to do this. I often wonder if Henry remembers. There are just days that he seems sad. I often think that he’s just missing his friend. The little girl just doesn’t cut it for him. I have a picture that I took on Murray’s last day alive where Henry is curled up around him, keeping vigil. Henry was the only living creature present when Murray finally passed, and I can’t help but wonder what must have passed through this space, what must have passed between them. The intensity of the energy here before and after his death was incredible; I can only imagine the instant of his passing.

It’s interesting how different a body looks when life has left it. It truly becomes just a body, and no longer a life. The night he died, I knew he was gone the instant I opened the door. Something about the energy was just different. I saw his body when I was about halfway up my stairs. I dropped to my knees and sobbed. I remember calling my parents and I remember my mother asking me if I was sure he was gone. It struck me as being such a funny question, because what I was looking at was not Murray. His spirit had left the physical body and the physical body was no longer him. There’s no mistaking that.

Until this experience, I think I always believed that dead bodies looked different only after they have been embalmed and chemicalized and processed to the extreme. I realized with Murray that the chemicals have little to do with it. When life is no longer there, a body is just a body.

This morning I met a cat who was twenty years old. Completely deaf and fully content in her cat life. And she looked good. It made me think of our cats “at home” at my parents’ house. Midnight and Jinx are alive and well – trucking along at age 18 or so. And it thrills me to know how happy and beloved they all are.

I’m sure I could waste all sorts of time wondering why some cats (and people) are given such long lives while Murray walked the earth for only a few years. But it wouldn’t do any good. I have no doubts that there are much bigger and better plans for him than I can even imagine. Even so, the emotional me grieves the loss of him. And that’s okay; I just need to remember to give myself some space to cry about it every now and again.

In the meantime, his ashes still sit on my nightstand. I had thought I would have had a ceremony by now, but life has gotten in the way. I feel okay about that, and I know I’ll do something beautiful for him when I’m ready.

For now, I’ll just remember and cry and laugh and make it through today.

**************************************************************

The sun rose
we soaked it all in,

Of course, no calculator
can detect where we go after we leave here

It does not mean we go nowhere,

Go back far enough and 'here' did not even exist

So, World, keep on spinning
Lovers, keep on loving

because where the next 'here' is,
may not yet be known or chartable on a map

But it would not be beyond reason to think

we will meet again.

Though we may not remember

today.

--Knut Prescott Lindsley
(composed 13 January 2005 in response to Murray's death)

Somewhat Odorous

2005-05-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

There is a mysterious and highly unpleasant odor escaping from my garbage. I don't know what is causing it. I don't throw food in there, as I throw food down my garbage disposal and the garbage disposal does not stink. I really don't throw much of anything in there, as I recycle almost everything that isn't food. The garbage smells worse (and entirely different) than the litter box it sits next to. I emptied it and the smell dissipated for an hour or so and then strangely reappeared. It has taken over my kitchen, such that even just sitting here is making me uncomfortable. And somehow the smell has traveled down my stairs such that it greets you upon entrance to my apartment. It does not yet affect my living room, bedroom, hallway, or bathroom, so I have that to be thankful for. It's been bothering me, and I thought I'd share.

Amazed

2005-05-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

I was going to do something stupid this weekend. Something I probably shouldn't have done. I was going to do it for clarity. Or for closure. And I was excited about it. Certainly more excited than I should have been. And you know what? The universe moved to make very clear that I shouldn't do it. To inform me that it would have been unhealthy and unproductive. To assure me that I would have found neither comfort nor closure. And I am grateful.

Ever Notice?

2005-05-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how much trust we put into complete and total strangers every day of our lives? I mean, have you really sat down and thought about it? It occurred to me today as I drove across one of the many narrow draw bridges in Seattle that, simply by getting into my car and driving down the road, I am trusting that every other driver on the road is paying enough attention to avoid drifting across the center line. In essence, I am trusting them with my life.

The more I think about this, the more I realize how many people we trust - how many people we MUST trust - in order to survive. We have to trust anyone and everyone who has ever handled our money or seen our credit card numbers. We have to trust that our bankers and financial advisors have our best interests in mind. We have to trust that our food suppliers aren't poisoning our food. We have to trust that our doctors know what they're doing and that our pharmacists can read our doctors' illegible handwriting. We have to trust that pilots, chauffers, cab drivers, and captains have been certified and that they don't want to die. We have to trust our teachers, our pastors, and our parents. We have to trust our lawyers. Because any of these people could literally destroy our lives: physically, financially, emotionally, or otherwise. And yet, for survival, we just have to trust that they won't.

So then why is it so difficult for us to trust ourselves? Why do we constantly question our decisions and accuse ourselves of inappropriate motives? Why do we self-criticize so much? If I can get out there and go about my day believing in others, why do I struggle so much to believe that I myself am doing the best I can? Why do I have such a hard time seeing my own goodness?

I really do need to be more patient with myself, I think. It seems that people around me trust me and my abilities more than I sometimes do. After all, every single day, hundreds of strangers and friends get into their cars, pull out of their driveways, and trust.

Interesting News

2005-05-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

In honor of Ali's impending graduation from law school, I thought I might call your attention to this case. The law really is fascinating, isn't it?

Sex Work

2005-05-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

Until very recently I had never known anyone who had utilized the services of a sex worker. I have known women whose significant others have gone to prostitutes and I have empathized with the emotional turmoil such visits usually create. I have had many conversations about sex work, both in my capacity as a rape crisis counselor and as a feminist/humanist who is interested in women’s rights/health. But to actually hear someone disclose that they paid for sex has challenged me to examine how I really feel about the whole thing on a personal/political level.

I am a huge advocate of choice and free will, and I do not necessarily support the illegality of commercial sex work in this or any other country. I’ve heard the job likened to that of a babysitter, and to some extent, I can agree. A sex worker is someone who fills a need for a temporary amount of time. I have no issues with women or men who “choose” to go into this work, whether by real choice or by “choice” as in that or starvation. And I don’t even have issues with men or women who are curious about the experience of random one-time sex with a complete stranger (who happens to make money in the transaction). But I definitely had a negative reaction to this disclosure and I’ve been trying to sort through why. It may seem obvious, but I’ve been thinking about the various reasons someone might go to a prostitute, and I have different thoughts and feelings about each.

I believe there are some people who utilize sex workers out of loneliness or desperation; out of an intense desire that we all share to touch and be touched; out of a fear that there is no alternative; out of insecurity. This I can understand, as I think we all want to feel desirable at times and I think many of us have difficulty fully comprehending our own attractiveness. In this way, I believe that a commercial sex worker serves in that “babysitter” capacity. S/he is paid to desire, to reassure, to fill a need.

I believe there are some people who utilize sex workers because physical intimacy in the midst of emotional intimacy feels impossible or really damn scary. A dear friend of mine was involved with a man who had an excruciatingly painful and traumatic childhood. This man essentially grew up visiting brothels and discovered in his adult life that prostitutes continued to feel very safe and nurturing for him. They were familiar and therefore comfortable. His relative anonymity with sex workers allowed him to continue to fulfill his need for that type of comfort without truly confronting his issues surrounding intimacy with his emotional partner. My friend was emotionally intimate with him and, therefore, for him to be physically intimate with her was terrifying for him. This I can also understand, as life is hard sometimes and sometimes really delving into those issues feels far too overwhelming. The thing I particularly appreciated about this case was that this man seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He once stated to my friend: “A high class hooker is the world’s best actress.” He never lost sight of the fact that these women were having sex with him because it was their job. There was never any illusion of this sex being particularly meaningful or “intimate.” It was and had to be sex without strings, through and through.

I believe there are people who utilize sex workers out of a sense of entitlement. This is hardest for me to understand. There are people who are somehow convinced that anyone who works in the sex industry does so out of complete and total free will. These people seem to believe that women and men get involved in the field simply because they really enjoy sex. While this may be true of a very small percentage, I believe it to be the exception rather than the rule. I was shocked to realize that my friend believes the opposite and I have no doubt that these beliefs allowed him to go through with and even enjoy the experience. Yet it also felt to me like he needed to rationalize his actions. At one point, he even described the act as “taking advantage of a girl” but it was “a beautiful girl” that he “wanted to have” and so he did. He appeared to have convinced himself that this woman does this work because she really enjoys it. He even argued that she must experience emotional attachment to at least some of the men she has sex with because, well, he just has to believe it happens. At the time of this dislosure, I shared my disagreements about some points, but I mostly held back. I couldn’t bring myself to ask whether he knew her name or whether they were able to communicate at all. For my part, I’m having a hard time understanding the objectification of a woman to the extent that someone would want to fuck her (and I do mean fuck) without it even occurring to him/her to ask how she got there. What is her story? Why is she doing this? What are her dreams and goals in life? Who are her friends? Where is her family and is she close to them? And yet, this entirely misses the point of seeing a prostitute in the first place, I suppose. So maybe sex without any interest at all in the PERSON with whom you’re having sex is where I get confused.

Of course, I write this even as I myself am trying to figure out sex and what it does or should mean to me. I certainly have moments in my life when I believe that polyamory/nonmonogamy might be the way to go, in that you’re allowed to express various aspects of yourself, up to and including sexual intimacy, with various people. And there are times when the idea of a “booty call” with no strings is very appealing. But I also notice that I care very deeply on many levels for every person I’ve been involved with and that the idea of “no strings” has a very different definition for me than it might for someone else. Mainly, I realize that there are always strings of some sort in that I just enjoy knowing people and their histories and their dreams, and the idea of having an interaction (of any kind) with someone one time only has never really appealed to me.

After hearing about my friend’s involvement with a prostitute, I did some minimal research about commercial sex workers around the world. It’s devastating. It really is. There are so many women and YOUNG GIRLS who are sold into prostitution by their families. Sometimes this is out of a belief that women are good for nothing else, but I have to believe that more often, it is because there are few other ways to make as much money. Many do not even realize what their loved ones are doing, only that they are able to support their families with it. Child prostitution rings are a huge humanitarian problem the world over, and lack of education about the transmission and prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections has created a horrific health crisis which is most pronounced among these workers. Many of the female sex workers I read about yesterday on the internet talk about how they are often raped or beaten if they try to insist on condom use, and the stigma attached to STI testing prevents many from tracking their own health. Of course, refusal of most governments (and individuals) to recognize commercial sex work as legitimate work has led to significant problems in trying to unionize, research, protect, and/or advocate for sex workers around the world. Access to brothels to conduct research is difficult, and the research that does occur often doesn’t even get back to help the workers being researched.

I don’t know. I guess I just don’t have the skin for it. It occurs to me that if I were ever in a position to have easy access to a sex worker, I would offer to pay her/him to sit down with me and share a meal, to talk to her/him about her/his world, to understand her/his background, to see if there was anything s/he may need that I could provide. Because until I can believe that all sex workers everywhere are doing the work because they truly want to and because they enjoy it, I can’t help but believe that the industry is not good for women. And therefore, I can’t help but believe that it’s not good for the world.

Sad

2005-04-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today I met a woman who'd had an abortion. And she seemed ashamed of it. When she had experienced grief about the loss, they tried to medicate her with anti-depressants. Because, you see, she wasn't supposed to feel anything about having a tool inserted into her vagina to destroy a cluster of cells that had latched onto the wall of her uterus. Because neither the process itself nor the decision to go through it are in any way traumatic or difficult or gut-wrenching (literally). But we just aren't allowed to feel anymore in this society. Any emotion that we do have is too much, and then we are supposed take drugs for it. It is considered "weak" and "unprofessional" to display feelings these days. Those who display constant stoicism are considered to be so strong and stable. Women are socialized to be emotional beings and then are warned that any emotional displays could be detrimental to their professional success. God help any man who lets a tear fall under almost any circumstance. Feelings are bad; therapy is bad; grief is bad; admitting that you might need a little help to get through the hard parts of life is bad. And that, my friends, makes me feel sad.

Faith

2005-04-27T23:26:00.000-07:00

Because, as George Michael says, you gotta have it. And I seem to be finding faith all over the place these days. “When there’s a need….”

For my birthday last year, my sister sent me a Quotable Magnet that states: “Remember what’s important to you.” I put it in my kitchen and tried to look at it everyday. Several months later, while strolling through Ballard, I noticed and promptly purchased myself a Quotable Magnet that states: “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” Together they hold down the hood to my stove.

In January this year, I lost my beloved cat and kindred spirit to kidney failure. Through the entire two-year battle, and most particularly at the end, I had to trust myself to make good decisions about the care and quality of this precious life. I knew nothing going into it but, now that it’s over, I wouldn’t change a thing. Somehow, the universe always made clear what I was supposed to do and how to do it. It was an incredible gift.

The end of Murray’s life on earth marked the beginning of significant changes in mine. As I started to tell people about my plan to quit my job and go back to school full time to study naturopathic medicine, I was often asked how it was going to work. It’s true: at present, I’m used to a certain standard of living that comes at some financial cost, which my full time salary is able to support. My mom wants to know where the money will come from to support myself and pay for school if I quit my job. I tell her I don’t know. What’s more, I don’t need to know. For the first time in my life, I have faith that it will be there. Somehow, in some way, if it is the right path for me, it will happen. For the first time in my life, I trust this to my core.

I used to know all the answers. I was a woman with a plan. I knew exactly where I wanted to be and how I was going to get there. But the universe had a different idea (and may still). I remember my devastation when I was told I couldn’t be a police officer. Everything crumbled as I realized that, for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what I was going to do. So Ali asked me if I wanted to move to Seattle and, for lack of any other acceptable option, I did. Thinking back on it now, I can’t express my gratitude and appreciation for a wisdom larger than me that rejected me from that path. It is overwhelming to think of all the things that I never would have experienced, all the people I never would have met, had I gone a different direction.

I am a much different person now. The idea of “letting go and letting ‘god’” resonates for me now. I don’t know where I’ll be in five, ten, fifty years, but I know I’ll be there if I’m supposed to be. I don’t know if I’ll get through all of my prerequisites before my goal of Fall 2006, but I know that if I don’t, there’s probably a larger reason that I don’t yet see. I don’t know how I’m going to pay for school or life after quitting my job, but I know that I will and that it will be okay. I don’t know what is to come of any of my relationships with anyone, but I trust that they will all work out in the healthiest, most growth-inducing way.

As Murray became sicker, I trusted that he knew what he was doing in his death and I had to have faith that I knew how to handle it. After his death, I trusted that I knew the right time to rescue another cat. So off I went to Animal Talk Rescue in February and announced that I wanted a young female to be companion to my adult male. I also announced that I didn’t want to choose a cat, as I couldn’t handle turning one down. Out came two young female cats, one at a time. Both were wonderful and either would have been a good choice. I could make the selection by one method alone and that was to take whichever one had been living in a cage in a shelter for the longer period of time. One had been there for seven days; the other for over four months. “I’ll take her,” I said. “What’s her name?”

“Faith.”

It was almost too much. She was rescued as a feral kitten and everyone asked the shelter why they were even bothering. She would never make a good pet, they said. The woman at the shelter had responded simply, “I have faith.” And so do I. Over the past two months, Faith has become one of the most social cats I’ve known. She loves people and loves attention and loves to play. This from a creature who supposedly hated humans and who spent her first day in my apartment hiding behind my toilet. Faith is a constant reminder of how beautiful life is. Her presence gives me faith that I can trust myself, as my timing and intentions in adopting her could not have been better. Watching her take risks around the house allows me to have faith in my own ability to create a safe space for her and for most other living beings.

In March, I was sent to Virginia. On my first day there, I met a girl from Denver, CO. Her name was Faith. For the four weeks I spent in Virginia, Faith kept me from disappearing – into myself, into my work. She pulled me out of myself at every chance she got. She kept calling to tell me that she hadn’t forgotten about me and to invite me out again, despite my bailing on several occasions. The more I got to know her, the more amazing I found her to be. I had expected nothing from this business trip, and I came away from it with yet another fabulous person in my life: a person who makes me laugh and keeps me entertained and who is a truly good person with a truly beautiful spirit. Faith refreshes my faith in people: Life is always easier when you know that there are other good people out there, believing in and working toward the same things you do. Faith restores my faith in myself and in my own good spirit. My unexpected friendship with her reminds me to stay open to others as I journey down this path called life.

As if overfilling a need, the universe seems to keep delivering on this theme. Lately, even during times that I feel most closed down or negative or cranky, I have been blessed with remarkable interactions with people. In the past few weeks, my soul has been affirmed by those near and far, known and unknown; my spirit has been uplifted and I’ve been seeing the beauty and gifts in people and things around me. From death at home to life at an animal shelter, from financial stability to a complete unknown, from a detail in Virginia to an airplane into Newark, from the end of one relationship to the start of another, I am learning to just have faith.

White Noise

2005-04-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

As I announced to Dianne as I walked through her door this afternoon, there’s a lot going on in my head these days. The trouble with therapy is that it lasts only an hour. It lasts even less for me, considering that one of the only things about me that is decidedly un-Virgo is that I can’t seem to be on time for much of anything. Including therapy. But that’s a whole other psychoanalytic can of worms.

As I start to write this, I have no idea where it will lead. There’s a part of me that is feeling a little sad, vulnerable, defeated, and really scared. There’s a part of me that is elated with recent goings-on and wants to share with everyone. There’s a part of me that is still trying to process Washington, DC, our nation’s capitol, and the four weeks I just spent there. There’s a part of me that might like to take a moment or two to wonder if anyone else has noticed that “the price of oil” seems to be all our fine president can consider these days. So I might end up happy, crying, or raging mad at the end of this. It’s all part of the process, right?

“When there is need, the universe delivers,” Dianne says, and I gotta tell you: I think she’s on to something. It has been a rather surreal month away from home for me, and it took a walk through those magical doors into therapy for me to fully realize that fact. (It’s amazing how safe I feel in that room, such that tears flow easily, walls start to come down, feelings awaken, realizations are made, and progress and growth are inevitable.) I’m trying to understand what the difference was between there and here, because after only a few days back home, I can feel it in the tenseness in my shoulders.

I went to Virginia to work – to do the very same job that I do here in Seattle, but in a completely unfamiliar location and out of a completely unfamiliar office. This set up has its obvious frustrations and I definitely made a few phone calls to my supervisor back in Seattle to vent some of those. But despite having all the same work frustrations and then some, I realize now that I was far more relaxed in Virginia than I am here. What’s that about?

So I’m a hard-core homebody. I love to dance and listen to music and dine out on occasion, but those who truly know me know that I’m most comfortable at home shoeless and bra-less, glasses on, curled up with a cup of tea, watching movies or talking to people. It doesn’t strike me that a whole lot of people get really excited about nights in, and socializing with people outside of the home is often more fun (or at least provides more options for fun), so I usually get myself out there. Here in Seattle, I have a very diverse range of friends, none of whom know/socialize with each other, so for me to connect with all of them can and sometimes does take up many nights of my month. This is AMAZING from the standpoint of how blessed I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. But getting out of my house and interacting as intensely as I choose to do with my friends takes a hell of a lot of energy. When I was in Virginia, I didn’t know anybody and (surprise!) my social calendar was relatively empty. I therefore had the option to go straight to my hotel room, cook dinner, watch TV, read, write, run, relax. And I made that choice quite a few times (just ask Faith). Making that choice when I did seemed to replenish my energy so that when I wanted to go out, I could without feeling overly drained or dead tired the day after. I didn’t know anybody there and I was therefore unconcerned about anyone’s expectations of me. That can truly take a load off!

But here’s the even more amazing thing: People still liked me. The whole time I was there, I was not feeling like my typical outgoing, funny, conversational self. I turned down invitations to hang out; I went to bed early; I, in general, took care of myself. This led to me feeling like I was not putting in any effort with people while I was there -- even with people that I really genuinely wanted to know and spend time with. I felt antisocial and lame. And yet, nobody else saw it that way. Nobody else was disappointed in me for going home. Everybody else understood what I was doing and they chose to keep calling to extend additional invitations.

I think I get so caught up in “living each day to its fullest” that I burn myself out on it. Or I forget that some days are lived to their fullest by staying in and going to bed early. It’s a habit of mine that I need to break. Dianne pointed it out with my running, but I do the same in my work: I run and work in phases. I won’t be motivated to do it for a while and then I’ll start to really feel it again. I’ll go really strong for some period of time and then I’ll start hating it. And then I’ll stop. Or come as close as I can to stopping. So the thing to learn is how to keep it at moderation. At tolerable, or even good, or even… healthy?

I’m trying to get my head back to where it was when I was in Virginia. While there, I just barely had enough work to fill up 40 hours. Therefore, I was forced to put work away at the end of the day. Sure, I could have spent my evenings typing, but doing so would have meant that I would have nothing to do the following day. So I didn’t type at night time. I just didn’t do it. Being there was very freeing in that my brain understood that it was a temporary situation. Therefore, it didn’t matter what I did or how much overtime I worked, because I would either finish the work or give it back. The world was not going to end either way.

Somewhere over the Midwest, during my flight back to Seattle, I seem to have misplaced that way of thinking. Sure enough, my first day back here, I got assigned many new cases. My whole body immediately went into adrenaline mode and somehow I’m convinced that if I don’t finish this work as fast as humanly possible, something terrible is going to happen. Yeah, okay, so maybe a person can work under those circumstances for some short period of time to meet a deadline or finish a term paper, but my job delivers 14 new deadlines for every one that passes. The work will never be done and a person will never meet every deadline or expectation. And that’s okay.

So now it’s about letting it go a little bit, about giving the work back at the end of every single day. It’s about trying to make sure that I’m spending time with friends only when I can and really really want to. It’s constantly about trying to remember to be gentle with myself and allowing that I’m not perfect and that it is unfair to expect me to be. And it’s about discovering that people will still like me -- they’ll still call me, they’ll still send me fun text messages and packages in the mail -- even when the “real” me is showing.

Well, At Least It's Easy...

2005-04-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Things I learned today:

74 pounds is a lot heavier than it sounds.
I should never wear a wool sweater when trying to check into an airport.
Pillow cases are handy little carrying cases.
Carrying 4 weeks of stuff for work is no fun.
I don’t like Northwest Airlines.
Security guards like chocolate.
Everyone is impressed by my business cards.
Having lots of electronic equipment (cords, wires, plugs, converters, etc.) makes it more difficult to get through security.
That’s okay, because see points 6 & 7.
I am a sweaty girl.
My mom always seems to call me when I’m very stressed out and then I get snippy with her. (Sorry, Mom.)
I like chocolate.
The fact that I’m on my way home somehow makes everything feel much better.
The fact that I get a massage Monday night makes everything feel MUCH better.
There are some very amazing people in this world, and sometimes you get to meet them at the most unexpected times and places.

I'm Learning How To Create a Hyperlink

2005-04-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

So Ali said that if I do this cool trick, it might create a link to her blog. Let's see!

Have I mentioned how cool Ali is? =)

Oh, and also -- I GET TO GO HOME TOMORROW!!!!!!

I Hate Stupid People (random unrelated thoughts on marriage, Plan B, and the pope)

2005-04-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

So not to be too terribly negative on this my very first post, but my recent browsing of the NY Times website has got me slightly upset. Two things that are supposedly interrelated (though I'm not always sure): Marriage and sex. (Or more specifically, reproductive rights.) But let's start with marriage.

I was reading this article which I understand to argue that marriage counseling isn't working because it can sometimes lead to divorce. So I ask you: what in the world is so great about marriage? And why is it such a crisis for marriage to end? As a single 25-year-old feminist, I can't help but notice that, in heterosexual marriage, women, in general, become "wives" and are forced to play the role. What is wrong with a "wife" becoming a woman again? Even if it does require the end of a marriage.

Counseling, in my opinion, is supposed to allow you to express what's going on in your head, put it in some sort of context, and work with it so that it doesn't continue to defeat you. Marriage counseling should do the same. It seems to me that many people, when confronted with the realities of their marital roles, come to realize that those very roles serve as the foundation for some level of discontentment. When a marriage counselor explains to a married person that s/he "does not have to put up with" any behavior at all (including a spouse's battle with alcoholism), the advice is completely sound. That is the beauty of free will: we have choices in every situation we confront. That is empowerment. And maybe we all wish that a spouse would support a life partner through thick and thin, in good and bad, "in sickness and in health, till death do us part", but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. And usually that's a good thing. Why would anyone in their right mind encourage a person to stay married to an abusive spouse? Why should anyone remain married to someone who keeps them down or holds them back from their dreams or life goals? Why should a person be miserable wedded to someone who has grown at an entirely different rate?

I am certainly not naive enough to argue that divorce is an easy solution to a failing marriage, at least emotionally speaking. It's a mess. And it becomes even more messy when there are children involved or when one partner has served as "domestic engineer" for years, passing up educational and professional opportunities for the betterment of the home. One would hope that marriage involves emotions, and therefore, so would divorce. But emotions aren't bad. And neither is divorce. Hard, yes. But bad? Not usually. And especially not for the female partner involved. In fact, every divorced woman I can think of is ultimately a happier and stronger person having been through it. (As a sidenote, I do find it to be particularly interesting that every divorced man I know was remarried or involved in a very committed relationship within a few months after a separation.) So maybe this is why divorce is so bad: it can empower women and force men to find another partner or (god forbid!) fend for themselves. Hell, just ask the current administration, which is paying for billboards advertising the financial benefits of marriage. Why? How on earth does telling people to get married for financial benefits serve the greater good? Why do married people get tax benefits and why does having children lead to more tax credits? We are overpopulated enough! So why should I, as a single professional woman who could not, at present, support a healthy child -- emotionally, physically, financially, or otherwise -- not have every possible access to family planning? Am I really supposed to just breed and be wed?

I find it very troublesome that we still live in a time where doctors and pharmacists choose not to tell their female patients about advances in medications and practices to choose how and when to have a child. There is currently a debate raging in Illinois (and many other states, not to mention those on the national level) about whether or not pharmacists should be required to immediately fill prescriptions for the "morning after pill" (otherwise dubbed the "after sex pill"...?) (see here). I just can't believe that we've got so-called doctors out there who are willing to prescribe just about anything else under the sun that mask or don't even treat the true ailment and who won't prescribe or even discuss healthy family planning options. When was the last time you were prescribed an antibiotic to treat a viral infection? Does your doctor even talk to you (in language you can understand) about what you have? We are destroying our bodies and our medicine with the overuse of antibiotics, the failure to treat the whole person, the refusal to provide complete and accurate information about sound scientific research out there (such as the finding that there is no correlation between amount of unprotected sex had by women and the availability of the birth control). And yet mature, responsible women who realize that they are uninterested in or incapable of motherhood have to come face to face with doctors and pharmacists who just don't think that's the right decision. And this from people who have never bothered to know her in the first place.

The condom broke the very first time I had sex with a boy. I was free to avoid panic about becoming pregnant because I have taken the time to educate myself about the ways and means of family planning. It breaks my heart to think that, even as our knowledge about birth control increases, the accessibility to family planning is at a steady decline.

I think back to my phone call to my doctor in Seattle, WA, requesting a prescription to the morning after pill. She informed me that my local pharmacy sells "Plan B" over the counter and that I could go there and request it without contacting her first, if I so desired. I take it for granted sometimes. And then I read articles about the outrage of pharmacists who are legally mandated to fill prescriptions for what is merely a high dose of birth control and it scares me for all the women and men who regularly patronize those pharmacies.

It fascinates me to realize that, for me, this issue is so far removed from abortion rights. Science has demonstrated that the morning after bill does not induce abortion or the like (not that I would think it wrong if it did). It actually keeps conception from happening by preventing fertilization, by preventing ovulation, or by preventing implantation, all of which are necessary for "life" to be created. And yet, the other side refuses to recognize the science, and argues against dispensing the option for fear of destroying life. And what of the life of the girl who couldn't get the emergency contraception fast enough? What about her?

And to top it all off, Ratzinger was selected as the new pope and it is widely believed that he will move the Catholic church backward in time. (Can it even be possible?) No abortion, no birth control, no gay marriage, no place for women in the church. What is this world coming to?

Riding Alone on the DC Metro

2005-04-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

It is truly bizarre when one takes inventory of one’s life and recognizes: “I’m a grown up.” I can’t say that this realization is terribly recent or that my reiteration of it is particularly rare. I often find myself looking around at the life I’ve created 3,500 miles away from my parents’ home and thinking, “I’ve done all right for myself.” I have a great apartment two blocks away from my favorite park in Seattle; I have a car that I bought new and have completely paid for; I have nice (enough) furniture, a DVD/VCR player, a piano, a TV, a brand new laptop computer, and amazing pictures and wall hangings from people that I love; I have a lot of money in savings and far more in retirement accounts; I have a financial advisor; I have good friends, both near and far; I have an amazing family, even with their issues; I have a therapist; I have great music to listen to when I want to; I have really good running shoes and equally good hiking boots; I can afford to buy everything I need and most of what I want; I have two amazing cats who are well-loved and well-cared for; and I have experienced the most beautiful, blessed death in my home. In other words, I have a home. But to truly reflect on that, I must realize how far I’ve come. I moved to Seattle, WA, from New York/New Jersey in September 2001. At that time, I had an apartment that my then-roommate, Ali, had found with her mom. And I had Murray. That was about it. I had never been to Seattle until the day I moved there. I had no car, no job, no friends, and no way to obtain any of these things. I was terrified of cities. I’m a country girl to the core and cities have always freaked me out. Which explains why, when riding alone on the DC Metro this afternoon, my realization that I had no fear and no discomfort at all was recognition of a great deal of growth.

I learned a lot during my bus-riding days in Seattle. I was dependant on them and rode them all hours of the day and night. Sometimes there was no one else aboard and sometimes there was standing room only. I got a hosting job at a restaurant down town and had to wait for the bus late at night on First Avenue and Pike. Only to board a bus that often had people who were experiencing a different reality than my own (literally). I had no one to protect me, so I learned (as we all inevitably do) to control my thinking and to avoid focusing on the catastrophic “what if?”s.

Seattle has calmed me down immensely. I used to be so nervous and scared of everything. Now I take things in stride and just go with it. Don’t misunderstand: old habits are hard to break, but it is a marked improvement. My parents and I took the Metro into DC from Virginia yesterday. They were so stressed out about how the ticket machines worked. I know I’ve been there before, but I found myself being the absolute calm one yesterday, walking my parents through a process that I, myself, knew little to nothing about. It was me telling them to take deep breaths and to recognize that this was not the end of the world.

I have lately been surprising myself with this kind of thing and I can tell how much growth has occurred just since I began therapy in August 2004. I am so grounded these days and generally able to adapt to the situation around me. I also know, perhaps for the first time, that when something is happening around me that I don’t like, I get to remove myself from the situation. Because I can, you know. I have that choice. And lately, definitely for the first time, I have been using that choice and really for real realizing that other people’s “problems” are not my own. And it’s okay for me not to try to solve everyone else’s “problems”. And even to understand that other people don’t always consider themselves to have the “problems” that I see. Therapy is teaching me to be more compassionate to the path that other people take during their own personal pursuits of true happiness. And more important, therapy is teaching me to be more compassionate with myself.

Looking Home...

2005-04-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

It’s funny how not being anywhere close to home forces one to think obsessively about it. I am currently at the beginning of Week 2 of a 4-week “detail” all the way across the country in Fairfax, VA. Having traveled to Sydney, Australia, immediately prior to this trip for a week and a half, I can’t help but dwell on the comforts and concepts of “home.”

While in Australia, I was shocked to discover myself experiencing “homesickness” after just a few days there. I have not had such a feeling in quite some time, although I will confess that I was the child who needed to return home right in the middle of a sleepover, having worked myself up so much that I literally made myself sick with desire for my own bed (not to mention my own mom). But in my adult life, homesickness has not been much of a problem. It makes sense, then, that my feeling of nausea and sadness at being so far from home created room for analysis.

We naturally seek out things -- stores, road names, people -- that are familiar to comfort us when we’re far from home. I was elated when I noted the Trader Joe’s down the street from the office and saved my trip there for one of those days that I needed familiarity. It really is the most simple of things. In the same way, it’s the most mundane of household items that I take for granted until I’m 3,000 miles away from them: used butter dishes to store leftovers, a VCR, large mugs for my tea, a stapler for crying out loud!

I’ve always been one to believe that it’s the people you care about that make a place “home.” So, in Australia, I was shocked to realize that people don’t entirely make a home for me. Or, at least, individual people don’t. And individual people who move away from a particular geographic area do not destroy my sense of home. I couldn’t help but notice, with some discomfort, that I did not feel “at home” with some of the people who should personify that comfortable feeling more than anyone: my best friend and my sister. Christina is the person with whom I’ve wanted to build a home. And D has always been a part of home for me. Yet neither came close to providing the comfort that just “being home” provides.

I told my mother on the phone how much I was dreading this time in Virginia while I was still in Seattle. She tried to comfort me by pointing out that she and my father would visit me from New Jersey while I’m here. I responded that, while I’m excited for their visit, they are not home to me anymore. This is true and this is how it should be. We all must move away from the homes our parents created for us and create homes of our very own. Many people travel this path with others: a couple creates a home together. Some of us do this on our own: I am still trying to understand why I describe New Jersey as my “not home” and Seattle, WA, as my “almost home” when I have spent more time there than here. But it just is. New Jersey is the home that my parents chose and it was what they had to do. Seattle is mine. Seattle is the first place (outside of college) that I came to all by myself. I am laying down roots that are mine and creating a life that is mine alone. It hasn’t been easy to create a “home of one’s own” in Seattle, but the mere fact of my longing for it indicates that I’ve been at least partly successful in my endeavor.

I don’t know how to articulate my yearning for home. It seems to be a yearning for a group of people, all of whom know me and know my city and know my home. It is a yearning for my neighbors, who know my car and my apartment and my laugh. It is most certainly a yearning for my cats, who know me at my most high and at my most low and who adore me throughout. It is a yearning for familiarity, a feeling that it is impossible to be lost emotionally, spiritually, geographically. It is a yearning for support for my process and growth, from people that have seen it in progress. I yearn for my own jogging trails, for my parks and my mountains. I yearn for my water on my coast. I am so disoriented here I don’t know how I ever lived in the east. My usually infallible sense of direction is quite literally completely backward and I just can’t seem to get my wits about me. I don’t know where I am and I find it unsettling.

And yet, I still know where the ground is, and my feet are firmly planted. I am solid and I know it. “This too shall pass” is what they say and I don’t even think I’ll have any lasting scars from it. The lessons I have learned at home from “home” are with me wherever I am. Being away allows me to practice and play with these challenges. Living temporarily so far from it makes me realize how strongly I am pulled back west. And I know it’s only a matter of time before I get to go “home.”

Traveling Thoughts

2005-03-21T08:24:00.000-08:00

Ahh, Sydney. What really do you have to offer me, other than an intriguing dialect on my own native tongue. Your natives are an incredible people and you have lavished abuse on them just as we have on ours. Your water is majestic, but it lacks the backdrop of my Olympic mountains. Your bushwalks are enjoyable, but they pale in comparison to a steady hike in the Cascades. I miss my mountains here and I have failed to spend time at the waterside. This has made me tired. Your crowds take too much energy and your people walk right into each other. I am drained by the city and am having difficulty replenishing my own spirit. Certainly, this park bench on a waterfront helps, but even here I am surrounded by concrete and landscaping. I need an escape.

I have thought much on this trip. I have recognized how much I take for granted my easy transportation and my ability to escape to my personal space or to what is natural. It has been difficult to lack control over my space and time and to feel as though I add pressure to the lives of those around me. I realize (perhaps just now) that I am most calm and grounded when I am by myself. I am most confident and at ease with only strangers watching.

While listening to D and me lament the trials and tribulations of "the city", Chad suggested that our difficulty in adjusting is due, in part, to our midwestern upbringing. There are far fewer people and fewer cities taking up far more space, such that, in the midwest, you have enough energy to fully take in everything you see and to take on everyone you meet. In contrast, there is far too much stimulation in a city such that you are forced to close things out. By keeping such midwestern openness under wraps, you can conserve your energy to the point that you can be attentive only to those things that truly call you out of yourself and not to every little thing. It is a logical point, and perhaps this skill is precisely what I am trying to learn in therapy, among other things.

I have thought much about therapy. I am realizing how far I've come in not taking on problems which are not mine. I certainly feel more "zen" as I go along in my life (with some notable exceptions like driving). I am noticing more and judging far less. I am recognizing my mistakes and attempting forgiveness for my blunders. I am allowing myself to feel and move on with acceptance and as much compassion as I can muster.

I have thought much about relationships. I have remembered the difficulty inherent in social interactions amongst groups containing odd numbers of individuals. Here, I am consistently the odd one out, whether with Christina + Ryan or with D + Chad. I felt similarly when Melanie + Alex were visiting. It is very strange and often difficult to come face to face with a necessarily changed relationship. I have been dealing with it in regards to D + Chad for over two years now, but I recently realized that I have never interacted with Melanie or Christina while either was in a significant relationship. It is interesting to be a person's "end all be all" (at least to some extent) for some portion of her/his life and then to watch movement and growth that requires a change in my relationship with that person. Melanie's priority right now is Alex and not me. That is as it should be and I would expect nor want anything different. However, there is no reason to try to pretend that this fact does not change my relationship with Melanie. And there is an absolute requirement that I protect myself in these situations. Christina needs to protect her relationship with Ryan right now, and that is entirely understandable. I am not there and I am not her roommate or her romantic partner. Additionally, I am a sure thing for her. And so, I can have compassion for Christina's search for happiness through her relationship with Ryan.

I have thought much about Nico. He is allowing me space and security enough in our friendship to pursue my own happiness. It intrigues me that I continue going back to him and my affection for him. He has not been my dream come true by any means, but he has been relatively open and present with me. He has grown up before my very eyes and I have done the same. He has curiously become one of my closer friends who knows the various aspects of my personality better than most at this point. And I certainly know him better than most of his friends, which both troubles and comforts him, I think. I have no idea what is to come in my friendship with him, but I am interested, comfortable, and present in it right now.

All of this is also good.

In Memoriam

2005-01-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

Murray(-Pants) Ross departed his earthly form seemingly peacefully around 7 pm, Monday, January10, 2005, after a two-years-long battle with kidney disease. He was approximately eight years old, though his birth date and early years remain a mystery. For those of you who do not know, Murray was my beloved black and white domestic short hair cat. He entered my life by happenstance during Summer 2000 and has been my primary companion ever since, even accompanying Katy and me on a cross-country car ride during my move from NJ to Seattle, WA, in September 2001. He and I have been through much together, including my senior project, graduation, moving out on my own, my first job, my first relationship, my first apartment by myself, my most life-changing decisions to date, and so on and so forth. He has been my constant and loyal friend, always eager with a snuggle when I needed one (although he was never quick to purr). He was diagnosed with kidney disease (unknown cause) in January 2003 and required daily administrations of subcutaneous fluids from that date forward. Through this diagnosis, his life managed to introduce me to a lot of truly amazing, caring people working in the veterinary field and even to expose me to what may be my dream occupation: naturopathic medicine. It has been a long hard road we've been on together, complete with drastic changes in diet and feeding schedules, daily fluids, natural herbal medications, and even some acupuncture. But I would do it again hundred-fold for such a gentle and amazing spirit as Murray. We had the most perfect final day together imagineable: I remained home with him all day, spending hours talking to him, soothing him, laying in the sunshine with him, and even taking his tiny body outside for a bit, wrapped in a fleece blanket. Although he could not stand up or move around by himself on Monday, he was perfectly at peace and seemed to be experiencing neither pain nor suffering throughout the day. Rather, his eyes reflected perfect contentment and awareness of the entire process. Although he was exhausted from the lack of food (he had stopped eating the previous Tuesday), lack of water (he last took a drink on Friday), and the anemia and disease ravaging his body, he did not close his eyes on Monday. He spent time looking so intensely at everything around him that it gave me the sense that he was memorizing everything, making his peace, and saying good-bye. Henry (my other cat) sensed what was happening and laid near Murray for most of the day. Although he passed away during the three hours that I left my apartment to attend class, there appeared to be no struggle and no fear. To my knowledge, he never slipped into a coma and faced death eyes-wide-open and with complete calm. I'm so very proud of him. He will best be remembered for the comfort he brought me at all times, the joy he experienced from having his tummy rubbed, and his desire to have the webbing between his toes massaged. He did nothing wrong his whole life, never once scratching anything other than his scratching post, nor using anything other than the litter box (up until his very last weeks on earth when he was too confused to do otherwise). He was a perfect soul. My beloved neighbor (and his secondary care-giver), Barbara, and I sat with his body for some time after his death, giving both us and Henry the chance to have some closure. I have chosen to have him cremated and intend to have a ceremony to spread his ashes in the spring at Discovery Park in Seattle, WA. I am doing really well, considering, and I truly know what a complete and total blessing it was to have such a perfect last day with him. I believe it is exceedingly rare that one can look back on a time such as this and say, without hesitation, "If I had it to do over, I would do everything exactly the same."

With love and blessed memories, Angela

Whatever Happened to All My Culture?

2004-12-31T07:51:00.000-08:00

It seems that somehow, sometime, in this "cultural melting pot" we call the United States, we have completely lost all real culture. Tradition and ritual have been replaced by the race to earn more, make more, have more. We no longer know who we are or where we came from as a people. How did that happen?

I am currently miles above earth flying from my not-home in New Jersey to my just-barely-home in Seattle, WA, and I have with me four books on progressive views of religion, courtesy of my pastor father, and a copy of The Red Tent. Jessica was clearly called to this book -- never having read it herself -- and I can't help but notice the profundity of the timing of this gift as I strive to completely alter the course of my life. I've known about the book since around 1998, but why do I read it only now? I suppose "god" works in mysterious ways....

The Red Tent (for those who haven't read it) is the fictional story of Biblical women: women who had no voice in the Bible and only minimal mention. But this is a different story: it is a story of power, a story of ritual.

I'm not a big crier, but I have found myself close to tears numerous times on this here plane as I read passages describing life and death and the feminine power that runs through both.

Midwifery is ritual. Natural health is taking us back to our roots at the most improbable of times. It occurs to me just now that I am drawn to this life path, that I always have been, because it is my distant and completely unknown ancestors that call me to it. This is my response to my personal need for ritual: to return to my roots, to understand and worship the power of womanhood.

It seems to be that time in my life. For the first time, a random "psychic" massage therapist has caused me to seek out the stories of my own family. I realized years ago that I come from a long line of very strong women. My people are survivors. Not necessarily of any one huge historical event, but these women know pain and hard work. Most of them experience a certain aloneness not known by all. Those who don't have the experience (such as my mother) sometimes seem as though they would be happier without the hassle of a husband. These are women who relish in their girls. Their bonds are tight. These bonds have never been matched by my father's side of the family, and few men seem to understand. We are givers and nurturers, humanists, counselors, and guides. Call a few of us co-dependent. We tolerate what we can handle -- which is a lot -- and no more. We are women who demand respect.

Several years ago, I realized my sister's intuition. Several years ago, I realized my own power to heal.

And what of my maternal grandmother? Who was she and what made her tic? What were her dreams and passions? For now, she has entered my life for the first time, having died when I was 4. At random, this psychic tells me that my grandmother is always with me, on my right side, and encourages me to seek out my grandmother's old legers. All of the women in my family are like her, it seems, but she is not often spoken of, other than in brief passing. My aunt, the longstanding matriarch of the family, seems to have the most knowledge of her (they walked the earth together for the longest period of time), not to mention that my aunt has whatever is left of my grandmother's things.

I feel I'm in such a strange and exciting time and place. I'm curious about so much and feel as if I have so much to do to understand. And yet, I feel very patient and at peace. I have faith that there is movement and that it is good movement.

I have desire to create for the first time in a while. I've been knitting like crazy and have had strange urges to learn to sew. I want to have more skills. I want to go back to the basics.

I want to LEARN! There is so much I want to know. About myself and my own history. I want women in my life. I want to eat nourishing healthy foods and I want to read good books and sit with cats and good girlfriends around a fire. I want community.

I want to express my womanhood in all its powerful forms: I want to be sexual and sensual -- a goddess among men. I, as every woman, deserve to be worshipped. And I deserve to worship others.

I want for all women to return to their roots -- to know their own beauty and the power of their life blood. I will sell The Keeper (http://thekeeperstore.com) and sea sponges in my office. And I will present each female patient with reusable pads. I will change the world!

I am on the right path now. I can feel it. I know it in my soul, in my blood, in my heart, in my entire being. Fear is present, but just enough to keep me attentive. I want to be a midwife. And that is good.

In particular...

2004-02-02T07:45:00.000-08:00

Were someone to claim that I am looking for something in particular (... I'm not entirely convinced that I am, but were someone to claim it...) this is what it would be:

Something casual but honest...
Something fun but entirely respectful...
Something friendly but without drama...
Something with few expectations but innumerable possibilities...
Something that allows open communication but does not require daily contact...
Something intriguing and challenging...
Something beautiful.

I deserve a good person in my life. I deserve honesty. I deserve....