I feel my own hiatus coming on...

Its been one hell of a year.

I keep trying to write here and sadness just keeps spilling out all over. I can't seem to stop getting my heart hurt. I dont know if its just inexperience with relationships with women or if it is something else. Maybe I am just inexperienced in feeling so intensely over someone else. Men, for decades haven't really rattled my cage much. But yet again I find myself having cried so hard I have broken capillaries in my eyes and a headache from hell. Drama Queen? I suppose so.

Would I go back to the time before I started this blog? No. For years... no for all my life...I thought it was just something wrong with me and my experience with sex and communication. Once I realized I was a lesbian and found sex and communication to be totally what it was hyped up to be... I finally felt whole. Normal. I have given up a life of relative priviledge for a life that for all intents and purposes looks uncertain and scary. But I know who I am. There is a certain priviledge in that self awareness. I find it frustrating now though to be aware of what I need and keep getting the door shut on the fullfillment of said need. Cruel joke? Yes. Am I too much in a hurry? Maybe. Do I trust too easily? Yes.

A few times since starting this blog people have told me that I gave them hope. That if I was making it through, they knew they could. I was humbled and happy. I have always wanted this story to help someone somehow. I hope that when I find something happy to write about or insightful or whatever I can go back to being a positive influence. And I hope that my admitting to have fallen into an emotional hole doesn't disappoint or irritate the lot of you. The truth is spoken here... insufferable me.... I am crying "uncle!"

be good to yourselves and to each other please...we're all we have.

nina

Be Careful What You Wish For...

a familiar phrase. When my mother was dying I began cogitating about fears. As I watched her gasping for breath I formulated a hypothesis "Be careful what you fear..." See my mother was terribly claustophobic. It was caused by a tramatic accident she had as a child. She was hit by a car and went underneath where she couldn't move. As she got older it manifested itself in many ways. She couldn't even take a shower because she feared not being able to breathe. So I found it bitterly ironic that she had to suffer and die from lung cancer. All her life she was afraid of not being able to breathe and that was how she had to face her death. It was awful.

I have been asked what my biggest fear is and I answer it the same every time. Living and dying alone. (If you knew how deep this fear is you would be shocked to think I would chance it by coming out and getting divorced) So as I face a weekend which was supposed to be filled with laughter, conversation and companionship, alone and lonely I have to wonder to myself if I have indeed picked my fate through my fear. Am I going to be forced to face and live with the very thing I fear the most?

Where would you go if you wanted to meet an Eskimo lesbian?
















a klondyke bar

I dotted my "i"s and crossed my "t's today....

I signed my divorce papers.

Beware of Killer PJ's

So this morning I woke up and put my foot to the floor and instantly remembered that I had hurt my toe. I sat back down on the bed and took my sock off. My middle toe is the glorious color of a tequila sunrise and grape soda... I realized that I probably needed to go to the dr.

I told my tale of woe to the dr and they took an xray. He came back with a picture of 2 fractured toes and this huge leg brace. Lordy. He told me that they needed to be immobilized to heal correctly.

When I went to the pharmacy for pain meds the girl there who knew me was looking at me quizzically and I knew she would be the one to cashier when it was time. It became apparent that this brace makes me look tough by the looks others where giving me and I quickly realized I must make up a better story about how I got this way. Something that makes me sound like a thrill seeker or a hero... There is no way I can hold this persona if I tell the truth. The truth is I was sitting cross legged on the couch in my pajamas yesterday. I got up rather quickly and my 2 toes got caught in the hem of my pj's and I fell. Poof! To make matters worse they were pink pajamas. How pansy assed could I be anyway?

So I began to formulate a terrific story for the cashier. It was full of intrigue and excitement. My heart started pounding as she came to the register and just as I had supposed she would she said, "Oh my gosh what did you do to yourself?" I took a big deep breath and I said,

"I broke my toes on my pajamas... mumble mumble....its complicated." then I blushed.

I never have been a good liar.

Random Thoughts

Don't go see Bridge to Taribithia thinking its just gonna be a cutesy kid movie. My kids were as shaken tonight as they were last night when I thought reading a Hans Christian Andersen book about the tin soldier and the ballerina burning to death in a fire was a good idea for a bedtime story.

My garage wall is still red.

My son and I were sitting on the couch talking about veganism... (seems like a whole lot of "isms" are living in this house of mine) I mentioned perhaps Googling "Vegan Culinary Schools" to see if there was something like that he could get involved with. I heard him typing... then when he saw his results I could tell he was a bit ruffled.

"Part of me wants to click this link...." he says quietly.

I look over his shoulder and see: "Vegan and Vegetarian Porn Sites"

"Huh," I said, "which part of you would that be?"

The truth is part of me wants to go back and click that link too... just for research of course...


I broke my toe today and it hurts like hell.

carry on...

12 Step Programs...

Have you done them? Do you do them? I seem to have recognized that I have my very own "step" program. Let see if I can identify the steps for you. So many of my steps are full of nuiance and steps within steps so bear with me. Or bare with me if you aren't shy!

Nina's 12...errr 9 Step Program for Dealing with Feelings of Being Out of Control

1. Anger
2. Sleeping Too Much
3. Drinking
4. Drinking Alot!
5. Crying and Sleeping
6. Drinking Crying and Sleeping
7. Sleeping and Drinking...neat trick if you can do it at the same time!
8. I Start Painting
9. I Suddenly Feel as if I can effect change...and paint some more... oooh! look! I can make something look different! ooooh! Listen to the sound of the paint rolling onto the wall! I am...good! I am in control of this moment... I am...I said to no one there....oooops! thats Neil Diamond....

painting is my therapy... why do I have to go through these steps of mine? I could skip months of the dangerous spiral downward. I can cut down the calories, the wear and tear on my liver and the emotional holes that friends find me in... why can't I just jump straight to number 8? Perhaps I need a sponsor for my 9 step program that can call me and say "Damn Nina would you just go paint something and be done with it?"

I call this "Garage Wall in Red"

No FAFSA for me....

I suppose it doesn't come as that big of a surprise. But now begins the inner dialog. "Is this really worth it?" "You *are* over 40 for heavensake!" "You will never be able to pay off a college education in your lifetime and send your own kids to college" "Tuck and slide...its over, its been over since your 20's. Get a job and deal with it." "Dollar/Cost averaging you idiot!"

I hate my inner voices. I hate them because they sound scornful and because they are smarter than the emotional me who has been desperately trying to scratch my way to the surface.

I long to spend a spring afternoon
with your head against my chest...
I will read of adventures or the poetry of love
while smelling your clean hair and perfume.

~nina~

photo:
Just a Couple of Girls, 1915
by Harry Wilson Watrous
oil on canvas

The Star Maiden (reprise)

As my luck would have it I have been afforded endless amounts of time this weekend for reflection and empty musings. I sat by the pond and watched the water lilies slowly closing as night approached.

My water lilies remind me of the Native American story The Star Maiden.

The story goes like this....At night the star maiden would look down at the beautiful people she would see living in such a beautiful world. She appeared to a young brave in a dream and said,

"I am tired of wandering across the sky...your world calls to me."

When the brave awoke he told the chief and the council of his dream. The chief told the people that a star wanted to live on earth and they rejoiced in her coming. They threw sweet wood on the fire, raised their arms in welcome and danced to celebrate the coming of the star.

In order to live with the people she most loved she was forced to choose a different form for a shining star must remain forever in the heavens. When morning came she slipped into a rose that grew strongly on the hillside and she was certain this would be her new home.

Alas, the next day she realized she was still too far from the village and the people she so loved. So she left the rose and floated down to the tall graceful prairie grass. Flowers of every color grew there and she chose the bluest most beautiful flower certain that this was her new home.

But soon the earth began to shake beneath her as herds of wild buffalo trampled through the prairie. She knew she could never rest there in that beautiful prairie. And that night she rose back up into the dark sky above the heads of the people she loved.

The people were sad. They were afraid they had lost her forever. That the earth she so dearly loved didn't welcome her.

She shone brightly in the sky and drifted slowly over a dark water lake. She hung there entranced at her reflection and with joy she saw the reflection of her sisters shining there as well.

"Sisters! Stop your wandering! Find rest with me in these quiet peaceful waters. Come!"

The people of the village saw the sky tremble with diamond shards of bright light. The dark waters came alive with stars.

In the morning the people gathered at the lake which had been full of stars the night before. They stood in silence at the beauty floating before them. Hundreds of water lilies floating quietly in the sun.

Water lilies are the stars that fell from the sky one night a long, long time ago. When the star maiden was seeking the world she most loved and had beckoned her sisters to follow.

This story never speaks about sacrifice. Although I have always thought it would have been a big one to give up shining brightly against a black velvet curtain...watching over the earth all night as the world rested. I suppose the star maiden knew her heart well enough to understand that leaving her home for the dark waters where she finally saw her reflection was simply the only thing she could do. She knew in her heart where she belonged. She lived true to herself. She was strong. She was brave. Perhaps the real sacrifice would have been if she had never dared to to leave her black velvet curtain.

Potential Memory

I Get to Meet My Son's Girlfriend After School Today...

This is the first time he has admitted to having one let alone let me call her "girlfriend". Uh oh!


wish us all luck....

:)

Breathe Me

Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And the worst part is there's no one else to blame

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me, I am small and needy
Warm me up and breathe me

Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found
Yeah, I think I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me, I am small and needy
Warm me up and breathe me

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me, I am small and needy
Warm me up and breathe me...

Sia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KO18daM89I

One Down, One to Go, 2 to Get Ready and 2 That Will Never Know....

So, I came out to my son. He is almost 17. He lives with me full time. I knew I just couldn't hide it from him. I moved out of my hetero house to become who I am and found myself still hiding from the men (man) in my life. It wasn't working.

I walked into the room he was in and sat down to talk to him several times. I kept getting up and busying myself somewhere else with the voice screaming in the back of my head,

"If not now, when? He probably already knows! My god what if he is second guessing his perceptions? Nina you know what that is like thinking something is one way and the grownups telling you its another!"

It kept at me. So finally I sat down. I told him I wanted to talk to him about me. I instantly, started crying. He sat patiently.

"Honey," I said, "I want you to know why I am getting a divorce... I'm gay. I have known for over a year and in October I (and him) moved out of our house because I could no longer pretend to be a wife to a man."

Tears just kept coming... I wasn't sobbing but tears just fell.

Seconds later he said, "Mom, why are you crying?"

I said, "I was afraid you wouldn't love me anymore because I am not who you thought I was."

My son got out of his chair and came to me on the couch and said,

"Yes you are! You are who you are and you are my mommy. (He only calls me that if he is really sincere or wants money) I will always love you. There is nothing wrong with being gay."

And he hugged me. Hard and long. And I felt yet another weight being lifted off my shoulders. My babies will learn about who I am. My parents, god willing will die never knowing. But my son knows who I am and I am one step closer (14 year old daughter next) to stepping out of the darkness of secrecy.

Sometimes I Repeat Myself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuIjyFa7cNQ

this is such a good song though and I has given the link to both the music and pictures of Patrice Pike so I will post it again.

My friend Kathy in Austin is going to see her play next weekend and I am green with envy.

Emotional Graveyards

I was on my way for grocery shopping and ended up behind a funeral procession. It was the cemetery next to the Walmart my last husband runs. I always referred to it was the "shop till you drop" cemetery. As I sat patiently watching each car turn into the driveway of the cemetery I was thinking how the whole viewing-funeral-internment thing is our way to mourn publicly. We have lost someone important and we go through all these things to show how much we loved them and will miss them. Everyone looks at you with the knowledge that something big and sad has happened in your life. They avert their eyes, give a second or to of extra consideration and always try to say something kind about your lost loved one and something to bring hope to your grief. As a whole, its a wonderful outlet of public sadness.

As the last car turned and I was allowed to continue on my way home I began to wonder. If there were such things as emotional graveyards how many of the cars on the road would be on their way there with their blinkers on waiting to turn into the driveway? How nice it would be to be able to publicly be recognized as grieving. Have people look at us and just know "she's lost someone....she is sad, smile and say something nice." Validate our pain. Let us cry at the drop of a hat and not ask why. Bring a casserole over afterward.....hey we all need to eat!

We lose a relationship that is important to us. A dream. A belief. And we just have to get up and get on with things. There is no ceremony for us. No one can even tell the kind of death we have experienced or if we try to explain many people will not give it the gravity it should have (we believe it should have) . Its heartache without a body. Its not tangible. We can't gather around a casket and see the loss. We can only feel it individually. No casserole.

Walking wounded. Angry, mournful. Perhaps the bars are where we go to publicly mourn? The candy store? Underneath the covers of a bed we won't rise from? Tears that betray us when we are trying to read a bedtime story to our children? We struggle up for air and pray for the day it doesn't hurt when we breathe. And no one knows it. And the day it doesn't hurt? No one knows that either. Its a silent struggle with a silent healing. From the outside no one ever knows we just got back from the cemetery.

Vagina!

My friend Kathy sent me this link which got me thinking about the word...

http://www.news4jax.com/video/10948456/index.html

Anywhooo, this started me thinking about words that we use to describe our personal body parts. As grown ups sometimes we name them with pet names. My first exhusband used to call his penis "John Thomas" which at the time I thought was amusing. Amusing until I started my first administrative job and my boss introduced me to the construction manager I would be working closely with.

"I'd like you to meet John Thomas...." It was all I could do not to say "Oh! I know a penis with the same name!"

After that I couldn't help but smile each time his name was mentioned.

When it comes to our kids many of us choose names other than the anatomical names. But I decided that penis and vagina weren't all that scary so I forged ahead. Of course with boys its easy.... but with girls well there is lots of parts not technically part of the vagina... I got into a discussion about parts and their names years ago when my daughter was about 6 and my son was 8. He was buzzing about but not really part of the discussion. But apparently he became enamoured with the word "vagina". I didn't know he was paying attention. Until dinner anyway. We were in the middle of dinner that night and in a break in the conversation my son screams "VAGINA!" we all stopped chewing in unison and turned to look at him. He looked pleased with himself. Then we all turned to look at each other. Then almost as on cue we began chewing again. One of my favorite mommy memories.....

What are your favorite words? Don't be shy!!!!

Inspired

I haven't kept up on my blog reading lately so while I was catching up I ran across this post http://lifeinthesuburbs.blogspot.com/2007/02/im-too-sexy-for-my-car.html from Suburban Lesbian. While reading it I could hear the Talking Heads song running through my head:

"And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!"



I traded in my suburban tank a couple days ago along with the car payment it came with and the massive gasoline consumption. It all started with me spying a bright red mustang convertible in the dealership parking lot. I LOVE convertibles and have owned 2 of them. I took a test drive and visions of being a chick magnet began running through my head (and loins). Then I took a look in the rear view mirror and saw that my babies had exactly zero leg room. Visions of 9 hour drives to Utah start seeping into my brain. The realization that being a chick magnet would last about 3 minutes into a drive like that and end 9 hours later as a pain in my butt and very cramped and unhappy children. Boom! Slammed back into reality! I pulled in and apologized to both my loins and the salesperson. I explained my need for better gas mileage and comfort for my girls. And I came away with this:



Its a Ford Taurus sea foam green....

I was feeling good about my choice given the parameters I had to work with. Its kinda cool... kinda sexy... I was convincing my loins pretty successfully. Then I talked to my attorney the day after my trade in and when I told her what I traded for she said, "Oh, an old lady's car huh?" Boom! Slammed back into reality! Twice in one week! My loins have whiplash. I immediately went home and ordered personalized plates!



If I can't be sexy at least I will be unique!

"Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was... "

Hate Mail!

I get it, do you? This one came in the form of a "anonymous" comment down below... I have comment moderation on for stupid people like this but today I just feel charitable. I have always found hate mail to be bothersome and sometimes unsettling at the very most but anonymous hate mail I find hilarious and less irritating than a fly buzzing about one's head.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "compulsive need to continue...":

I hope your children grow up to hate you very very much for what you did to them. I'm sure your sperm donor already does.


publish this comment. reject this comment. moderate comments for this blog. Make a new post about this comment and mock it for this blog. Posted by Anonymous (ie coward) to Closer To Fine at 1:59 PM


perhaps if I am lucky I will continue to get a steady stream of it and then once a week I can post it all. I can always use new material and there are days I just can't think of a thing to say.

compulsive need to continue...

http://media.putfile.com/question-35-22

http://media.putfile.com/biggerthanlesbian

http://media.putfile.com/imoneofthem

http://media.putfile.com/herorherorher

Bear Eats Lesbian

http://media.putfile.com/gpond17/e

One of my favorite lines of all time.
On Golden Pond

I have no life so I sit around looking for audio with the word "lesbian" in it for fun. Go me!

http://wavcentral.com/cgi-bin/log/log.cgi?id=2790&sound=http://sounds.wavcentral.com/televis/southpark/lesbians.mp3

Eve of Destruction

You were not my epiphany
You did not open my eyes.
But you welcomed my gaze
as my vision cleared.
What a beautiful vision.

You were not my journey
my compass, or destination.
But you took my hand when
I stumbled.
What a beautiful hand.

You were not my decisions
my motivation or end.
You were an addition.
What a beautiful addition.


You were a light in my darkness.
Your love a validation.
Your kiss a welcome home.
Your body a touchstone so fine.


I may forever be your Eve of destruction
but you my love, will never be mine.

~nina~

Hidden Faces

My daughters declared this "Hair Do Day"

and they pounced on me this morning while I was still in my pj's and lounging around like I was the queen of something.... whatcha think? Do they have a future in hair design?

Leather and Bedtime Stories

Did I get your attention? *grin* Well, unfortunately I am talking about two different things...sorry!

I bought myself a leather jacket! It is chocolate brown and so soft I would swear it was made from *real kittens. Here is a picture of me happy in my new jacket! Thank the little baby jesus for soft focus because not only was I happy I was also puffy and pale too.




Now for something completely different: My 7 year old likes to read to her stuffed animals at night. I help her prop them all up in a semi circle on her bed and then she reads to them. Sometimes I lurk just outside the door to hear her. She talks to them the way a teacher does. Scolds them for being too wiggly or for talking to their neighbor. Damn she is just so sweet.



*no I do not advocate the killing of kittens for coat making. Although this jacket is made of lamb which I guess is right up there on the cuteness scale and will send me to hell or make me the target of PETA anyway. My son looked at me in horror as I showed him my jacket. He said, "Don't touch me with THAT THING!" I am such a disappointment to him now that I bet he won't bat an eye when I tell him I am gay.