Picture of My MRI Results

Didn't find a thing wrong with me except that boy oh boy am I gay... and lets be honest shall we ladies? Don't most lesbians reserve the right to have one or two "I'd do him" men in their lives still? Well, at least this lesbian does... mine is Capt Jack Sparrow... and on a lesser scale Kevin Bacon but thats only when Johnny isn't wearing his pirate costume.

I have no diagnosis yet. I have no pain relief either. And on days like today I could swear I have no shadow. But that my friends is a therapy issue.

Be well.
nina

Embrace

I have been working with my lesbian erotica project and my dedication page to Tee A. Corinne. This is my first published work. It will be up on my photo site as soon as my techie has time to work for me for free. I hope you enjoy it. Unfortunately, its full impact cannot be expressed with the space allowed on this blog. Be patient and the full size one will be available soon.

take care,
nina

Yes Sir, Thats My Baby....

I took my son to every immunization date. I took my son every year just for an exam. A sniffle=a dr. A cough=a dr. I swear to the sweet baby jesus... I was a present and involved mother. He started complaining of backaches but really if you saw him dance on stage with his bass guitar all a normal mother would say is "Well, duh! Of course, your back hurts!"

When jen came to rescue me from my unexpected abandonment and isolation she was listening to Ryan describe his pain and she had him bend over in front of her with his shirt off. Something I had never thought of doing. Why? I dunno. But it was obvious, huge curve! Jesus how did I miss this? Bigger JESUS, how did health screenings for 17 fucking years miss this?

A nice lady named Angie took the pics and orders a bone scan which we did the same day I did my MRI. I am surprised the house didn't glow that night. We are waiting for results from all fronts. Angie says its not the scoliosis causing his pain and the degree of the curves are not considered to be in the realm of surgery. But there is something perhaps lower causing his pain. Perhaps it really is his jumping around like a rock star that has fractured something. Perhaps its something else. Perhaps perhaps perhaps......too many perhaps's in this house these days.

I told him I was using his back x-ray as his high school picture because he missed his 11th grade picture opportunity this year... but for fairness sake below this is his prom pic... cute little bugger ain't he? Yes sir, that's my baby!

I Went Tubing Yesterday!

Yeah yeah well... I had an MRI but it sounds more fun to call it "tubing" don't ya think?

I was scared and alone. The alone part was by choice. It gives me the chance to pretend to be brave. I had my choice before it all went down. I could do it with drugs (valium) or a towel over my eyes. I chose the towel because I would have had to have a person drive me home if I had taken drugs. As I left that day for my appt. I noticed a wife beater left behind (this time on purpose) by a certain someone whose scent I adore. And I thought to myself, "Self? Why not take your own towel for your eyes?" and I grabbed it. Before they tubed me they let me wet it down a little and it brought her scent to the surface. I laid in that tube for over an hour breathing her in and using the relaxation techniques which she had taught me over the last week she was here. Next to body massage and masterbation it was the best private time I had spent in years. I would highly recommend it if it didn't cost thousands of dollars. I drifted in and out and never opened my eyes. The only fear I have now about MRI's is the diagnosis. Well and maybe the bill. When I got home I took this self portrait depicting the position and the item I used to get through the MRI... I would have done it there but metal of any kind is forbidden.

How do you say "Thank You"

for a gift which you can never repay? How do you portray adequate humility and appreciation for a selfless act? I may never know. But I will go my whole life trying to.

Several weeks ago my symptoms got so severe I was almost taken to the ER. My fear of drs. kept me from going. Drs. have told me since that time it might have been the culmination of the stress from all the changes in the last year and then sudden emotional jolt I received from someone I held dear to me that set off such severe symptoms. Whichever and whatever it is I found myself unable to function. Funny then the very day my life fell apart I would get a small text from a far away land called Maine. It simply said, "If I bought you a ticket today, you could be here in 7 hours". Odd, sorta because we had been broken up for a very long time (old news, old stories) yet I took it as a sign to talk to her. Once I called her and told her everything (symptoms and situations) she came to me. She dropped everything. Work, kids, dog, girlfriend and came to me. No strings attached she said. She said I was worth caring for just because, that I was worth loving just because, and it didn't matter if afterward we parted ways never to see each other again. I deserved compassion and safety.

She spent many a night and day helping me get used to new meds (and withdrawl from the old ones... Yes Virginia, there really is a thing called SSI withdrawl. I can attest to this because I had a neon coffee house in my head and auditory hallucinations... but I digress) and the idea that I am now disabled (not necessarily forever just for now). It wasn't an easy job she had. I was weepy and cranky and angry as hell. Yet she put it aside and continued to help me sit/stand. Helped me relearn how to get in and out of a car. Helping me to the bathroom (and all the stuff that went with it). She helped me be brave enough to let go of my fear and use a wheelchair although I freaked out the day I tried to get into a motorized chair at the mega store. (Hey even us disabled homos need to draw a line in the sand somewhere, albeit a creative and artistic one). Photos below are of me and my baby Emma at the Boise Art Museum. I was teaching Em how to draw using grafting. She did great and I actually liked being down lower at her level.



jbs
copyright 2007

Jen (Maine) then did something that I will remember the rest of my life. She got permission to wheel me underneath the hanging exhibit. You know how jittery museum police can be about their collections. As I went under I realized Jen was trying to tell me that things can be breathtaking, interesting and accessable from all angles...not to give up just because the old way doesn't work anymore. Yet another gift she gave me. One I will remember always.

During all this time of drs and meds and pain and frustration we also rediscovered each other. The "each other" that time and tragedy had battered down into big ball of hurt and anger. We discovered sobriety and communication (at least for us) worked in ways we couldn't have imagined. We decided this breaking up thing just wasn't working out for us. It had sent us to places which we didn't ever really want to go. Gave us experiences we could have just as soon done without. We realized we were lovers. We fit. We got each other. Like a puzzle piece. Below are pictures taken at Old Chicago in downtown Boise. My good friend Donna took it of us one of the nights I was feeling well enough to walk on my own (damn it though...no dancing) and we saw Rebecca Scott and just enjoyed the company of our new friend Donna and an old love that had been patiently waiting until we both were ready.






http://360.yahoo.com/donnanag

copyright 2007


whew! These photos drip with happy if you ask me...

Jen went home a few days ago and I miss her desperately. Back to her real life that she selflessly put on hold to help me, an old lover whom she never forgot. Logistics are hell. Ask anyone from Chicago or Tennesse. What next? I don't know. But a part of me walks once again inside a woman who lives 3000 miles away. I am so bold as to say it is the same for her. We hope in a year or so we may combine households. In het terms we will be married. Sadly, no one will recognize it. Except maybe those who care to look deep enough into our eyes.

May love and compassion, friendship and passion find their way into everyone's life.

All my love,
nina

For Tappy

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DBohuGTJzdo

As if being a Homo isn't hard enough....

I am having an MRI tomorrow... still in search of lions, tigers, bears and angry bunnies. I let my little girl walk herself into preschool today for the first time. I didn't get to hold her hand as we chattered away about her day ahead of her... she bounced along happily anyway while I sat in my car and cried because my legs are too heavy to move the few hunderd steps it would have taken for me to take her to the door and kiss her goodbye.

Hey! What do you call a lesbian who is too tired to leave the house?

Homolone...

hahahahaha ha?

I hate this. I hate all of this.

Toastman is on the move...

http://travelswithtoastman.blogspot.com/

Mememememememememe/cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat

I did one of these in a a different life and different time...but find that I am still weird in the same ways I was before although I will have to think up 4 more today because last time it was only 6. I wrote this meme before I came out but knew what was happening to me. So I giggle furiously about the Jodi Foster reference. Enjoy!

1. (old weird)I dreamed recently that I kissed Jody Foster. I mean really kissed her. I don't recall ever having a dream like that before in my life. So I suppose I should be glad I got the players right the first time.

2.(old weird) I don't sleep with socks on because I can't breathe. *shrug*

3.(old weird) I have an actual mental list of things I will start doing if I find out I am going to die.

sample:
1. Kiss Jody Foster
2. Walk barefoot outside
3. Pour half n half on my cereal every morning.
4. Make a sincere public apology to Ms. Foster in order to keep out of prison during my last days on earth.

4.(old weird) I have never eaten pumpkin pie.

5.(old weird) I love reference books. Things like dictionaries, thesauruses, phrase origin books... Recently I spent over an hour sitting cross legged in front of the stacks just touching them and turning their pages... Had I not noticed that unauthorized biography of Jody Foster on a table across the aisle I would still be there I think...

6.(old weird) I have made my own personal holiday. It is Sock Liberation Day. It's coming up soon. June 1st. If there has ever been a true bane of my existence then it would be socks. I hate them. On June 1st any and all socks that even look at me funny will be thrown out. Period. I will giddily toss them. Winter is a long time away, its time to dance barefoot.

Only one person I have ever met has given me an alternative for SLD. This fascinating creature wears mismatched socks. She has cleverly bypassed the entire frustration. One day, I look forward to walking among the masses unafraid of persecution for my mismatched socks. I can feel that day dawning. On the other hand, I have a long way to go on convincing my family mismatched is normal and even farther to go to get them to notice that their feet are just as warm.

I wonder if Jody Foster wears socks? I wonder if they match? But I digress...

7. (brand new weird) Instead of planning my gardening beds with a computer program or graph paper I just buy a can of spray paint and I paint it on my lawn. I will spend weeks revising a curve or changing this or that. Here is my current plan. Its a bed in the front yard which will eventually be raised and home to a red leaved tree a butterfly bush and two forsythia bushes. Perhaps I will scatter bulbs in the bed also... but first things first.

8. (brand new weird) When I was little I renamed myself and insisted everyone including parents and strangers call me Nina Cook. No one knew where that name came from. It lasted for almost a year. Then one day Nina was gone.

9. (brand new weird) When I realized I was a lesbian I realized Nina hadn't gone anywhere but had been waiting patiently for me deep inside. Once I have extra money I will be legally changing my name to Nina Michelle. My old friends will always call me Michelle or em but my new lesbian friends and my professional name is now and always will be Nina.

10. (brand new weird) I am racking my brain here people.... quirky is my middle name....perhaps I will leave it open for debate and suggestions because really... I can't think of another one right now...

Thanks BA for the tag....sorry I cheated...it was still fun especially thinking about Jodi Foster again. *grin*

Lions and Tigers and Bears or maybe just a little bunny...

Its hard to say. As it stands now I am waiting for test results to come back from my blood work up. They took enough blood out of me to make even a seasoned nurse comment about the amount and at one point even likened it to blood letting.... comforting eh? Earlier in the week they xrayed me too. Those came back normal.

Symptoms may have been sneaking up on me for years. But for the most part this last year has seen copious amounts of change in my little life. Not all bad. I found myself telling a friend just the other night that even if everything else in my life sucked being a lesbian is always going to be the constant good thing. So as my medical professionals start throwing around words like MS,Lupus,Rheumitoid Arthritis, Fibromyaligia, Depression with body pain involvement I need to remember my refrain of "Yeah but at least I'm a lesbian!".

I wonder which one of those would be my "lion"? Is a lion scarier than a tiger? I suppose MS could be my tiger. Lupus would be my lion. Rheumitoid Arthritis is my bear? If its fibromyalgia will that be less problematic and be more able to think of it as a bunny? Maybe an angry bunny? What about depression? I mean I can relate to depression. I am already being treated fo depression... though I have never known that depression could actually cause the type of bone and muscular pain I am in but my dr says it absolutely can. She also believes it to be as valid as any other type of pain. Perhaps I should liken her to Glinda. Bless all the dr.s in the world who believe those of us who hurt.

So in the mean time I'll wait here in Oz for results, and boy waiting does truly make the time "mean" time.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

William Shakespeare, "King Henry V", Act 3 scene 1


Oh screw it, I have no time (I am already 45 if I live to be 80 then my life is more than half over already, if I live until I am 50 then I am already screwed) nor the energy for being morose so instead here are some things to make us smile...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-u8hi0RTbk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkGXuiT55w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWrUykkc-bs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TQByv_xkuc

and last but not least...one of my crushes I didn't understand at the time...Marta Kristen...if you watch the entire 3 minutes the end has pictures of all of them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeBUMYG-iP4&mode=related&search=