Mad Gab Monday

1. Dawn As Hummer

2. Ball Stunk Lamp Shouter

3. Boat Hock Sin Check Shuns

4. Dawned Hutch Debt Aisle


have fun!

Built from Bits and Pieces

It used to be a portable patio I had at the house on Blueberry. It was bent and ripped in a storm and we had to disassemble it. For some reason I asked him to keep it. I know he thought "oh great, more crap to store."

A couple months ago he asked me if I still wanted the pieces/parts. It was great timing as I had just started mapping out the side yard for my new rose garden and mediation "room". He brought it over and stacked all the steel up against the fence. I looked at it all scattered and in disarray, it looked nothing like it did on Blueberry before the storm. Things like this always appeal to my sense of irony. I nodded at it in hopes that it knew I empathized with its plight. Once a strong, beautiful structure laying in a heap, a mere shadow of its former self. Kinda like me.

It took exactly one day of passing it in the yard before I saw what these beautiful pieces were destined to be. A trellis. A beautiful, unique, sturdy trellis. It would become the focal point of the rose garden. A sentry, an invitation that will beckon you to come in and linger just a moment underneath to smell the sweet smell of honeysuckle winding its way up the ornate sides. So I began. Steel drill bit, bolts, L brackets and a design in my head that wouldn't let me sleep at night until I finished it. My first attempts of joining these three very heavy pieces together proved to be too whimpy. L brackets were just not going to cut it. I went back to the pile of possibilities and looked at the pieces/parts. I needed a brace. Infact, I needed 4 braces. I saw a perfect piece. I fit it to the trellis. Perfect! I went back to the pile and much to my delight, I found 3 more pieces exactly the same. I could tell the excitement the pipes felt has I lead them away to their new identity.

After a blur of dodging hot metal shavings, cringing at the sound of metal on metal, nuts and bolts, and a slew of swear words the trellis was done. It has laid patiently on its side for a few weeks waiting for the hole digging fairy to come. The HDF seems to have gone AdWeOnLver. So today I dug. And dug. And dug. Then finally the moment of truth, I tipped the trellis and it slipped like a glove right into the trench. A little off plumb, a little imperfect. Kinda like me. It still needs spray paint to cover the bright silver hardware. It still needs the Dremel to come along and sheer off the excess boltage (is that a word?). It needs one more round of cement. And of course, it waits for its companion. A beautiful vine which will wind itself around its hard edges and decorate it with sudden blooms of color and fragrance. Kinda like me.



*dearest gina, its marked with a star so you know you're here no matter where you are...

Sincerity as Far as the Eye Can See!

A few weeks ago my girls and I planted pumpkin seeds in a barren patch of ground that Gina and I cleared out and covered with weed guard this spring. The seeds were in little peat pots that you plant right into the ground. The minute we covered them up with soil we forgot all about them. The backyard has not been kind to plantings this year. Today I glanced out of my son's window and a little spot of green caught my eye. I can't believe it! We are going to have a pumpkin patch this year!

Crazy Screaming Lady in My Head

It has become blatantly clear as I unravel the tightly wound package that is nina, she has some really bad habits. Habits that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Nina is a human shock absorber. An enormous black hole. I travel through life sucking up every hurtful, stupid, inappropriate, over stepping action of other people and I absorb it as fast as I can so that no one will see it. I don't know if its because I am embarrassed that someone has hurt me in front of others and I want it to go away as soon as possible so no one will direct their attention toward me or somewhere inside I think that if someone is making the effort to be mean and nasty I must somehow deserve it. Whatever it is, I take it and embrace it like a lover. I certainly do not respond or fight back. Good God the ripples that would make! I try to make the smallest shadow possible. Make the tiniest target. Remain silent. You know that tree that falls in the forest? The one nobody hears? Thats me. I catch it before it falls.

I protect people. People who do not deserve to be protected. I hide their bad behaviors. I make excuses for them. I am their personal PR person. I do it for them for free. The price falls to me and I pay it. Its self extortion.

I have often done self-therapy. I have been lucky in that I can research and work through a lot of my destructive behaviors. I have had the benefit of some really healthy friends who have helped me out of bad situations by assuring me that it wasn't normal for life/people to be that way. But I am stumped with this one. I have no idea how to fix it. I want my Lyla back. I don't know how to advocate for myself. Words and emotions bounce around inside me like electrons. Each screaming above the other.



Its loud. It distracts me. It hurts my ears. It makes my heart race. It sticks in my throat. It makes me white.hot.angry.

But ya know, if you met me today on the street, you wouldn't hear a sound.

Denver Pride clips and Pearl Street Mall

www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff?user=100503678146070263978

Virgin No More

I am back from Denver PRIDE! We had a blast! There was a group of high school kids from their GLBT organization in the parade. I wondered what it would be like to know who you are at such a young age. I became overwhelmed several times as I watched the crowd ebb and flow. We have come a long way since Stonewall. I never did make it up to the church on the hill to see the tiresome "God Hates Fags" delegation. Perhaps next year? Cute deaf lesbian couple No, its not really Caesar! Some for my baby My baby's shoes... I don't know why

T.S Eliot and a packed suitcase

there is nothing happier than a packed suitcase waiting to be zipped up for a trip! Come to think of it, it can also be the saddest. Thank Goddess I am on the happy side of the suitcase!

Two finals this evening and one more sleep then I am off to PRIDE in Denver! I will strive to be as rainbow as possible and kiss Gina smack dab in the sunshine. (well i do that anyway) I leave you with a hand picked anthem and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock




THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK

by: T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

ET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
(They will say: 'How his hair is growing thin!")
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
(They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!")
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

* * *

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" was originally printed in Poetry, June
1915.

Dead and Buried

8 weeks ago I began a Small Business class at school. Our "big finish" was to be a complete business plan and presentation. I began with a passion of mine, a green cemetery. I fell deeper in love with this concept as the weeks progressed. Somewhere at 4 weeks I grew overwhelmed at the immensity of the business and realized I was over my head. I respectfully buried my green cemetery. In one weekend I dreamed up a new concept and began writing a new business plan.

To say it was a big task is an understatement. The school has Word Perfect 2003. I have Works. Needless to say, they don't talk to each other. I can't afford to buy the same program the school has. I had two running copies in two different places because of this. After 4 weeks of work and (gina's computer skills and magnificent math skills) it was finished. In class the night before the presentations, I found out the computer that was to run my powerpoint presentation didn't have speakers. I was dumbfounded. I cannot understand how a school can, in good conscience, expect a powerpoint presentation without making sure it is working properly. I had a meltdown. I was met with several statements which made matters worse. My teacher looked at me and said,

"I'm sorry, you should have asked."

??? I should have asked if when you expect powerpoint from me and tell me at the beginning of the class it was available to me, whether or not it worked properly? Further questioning revealed that it wasn't just a recent occurrance but one that happened a long time ago which they haven't fixed. Then to make it worse, the Dean of the College, in front of God and everyone, and me visibily upset, said,

"Computers are our friends, sometimes..."

To me it seems these are attempts to excuse the obvious lack of excellence on behalf of the school. When I was researching educational possibilites one of the qualities "Tortures of the Damned College" stressed was their strive for and expectation of excellence. It appears that TDC holds itself to a lower expectation of excellence than it does its students. I have made a note of this and will, in the future, adjust my striving accordingly.

Season of Pride and Appreciation

Rambling Along in Life has challenged everyone to tell their coming out story.

I decribe mine as "The Forty Year Sleep". I have lived my life as a middle class housewife. I have been married twice and I have 4 kids. It never occurred to me that the reason I never could get a deep emotional connection with my partner was because my partner was the wrong sex, or avoiding sex was because I was having the wrong kind. I just assumed it was who I was. I was broken or damaged and this was life.

What came next has been documented to death through the pages of my blog and I encourage anyone interested to scroll back to July 25th 2006 and begin. It is NOT literary genius but it is full of real emotion about coming out. Instead of typing out my coming out stories again I will share a few of my poems which I wrote during that turbulent time. I hope you enjoy them and hey! Happy PRIDE!

COMING OUT

coming out appears to me to be,

a series of leaps and creeps not always in the same direction.

coming out appears to me to be,

aided by the slight of hand of a magician.

coming out appears to me to be,

a lifetime of lefts and rights a constant imperfect navigation.

SHE SLEPT

It’s almost June,

the season of pride and appreciation.

Where the light shines late into the hour

illuminating even the darkest cornersof overgrown and untended gardens.

She has woken,

lifting her voice above a whisper,

silence no longer her companion.

She will walk barefoot and dance tothe music which plays inside her;

it beckons her to follow,

to reach out and hold her beloved in the sunshine.

FIRST BREATH

Laid bare,

her body and my sexuality.

Tangled fingers in her hair

pulling her closer.

I traced the curve from her breast to her belly with my eyes,

Not knowing if I was lioness or debutant

she allowed me in,

with teeth and tears

I finally began to breathe.

To the Moon Alice!

Some days the gravitational pull is stronger than others. My love is having one of those days. Honey, I hope this will help with the heaviness.




You can do it too! Click HERE.

Thanks Gina!

Just in case you haven't read the back story, you can read about it HERE and HEREand the conclusion HERE.

More imagination, less wood ticks

I haven't checked on them this morning... I hope they made it!

Feelin' Groovy

This video is many years old. Emma was still timid, my parents still lived in Salt Lake and my daughter Nicole was still with us. I made this for my parents as a thank you for the lovely week we spent there. It seems I'm feeling a bit groovy today; I wanted to pass it on...

Less Drama More Cuteness

We have had another graduation in the family! Today my baby graduated from Kindergarten. She sported her That Girl/Laura Petrie hair do and was cute as a bug!



Emma and my soon-to-be 4th grader:



Emma and her teacher:



"And the seasons they go 'round and 'round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game..."

Okay okay...

because of many emails and comments from people asking to know more about my last post I will acquiesce.

Here is a picture of my son and 500 other young people with mortarboards in the air at the moment of dismissal:




He made it!

It was touch and go until the last month of classes. He ended up passing everything with a C or better. Proving once again that he is sharp as a tac and woefully unmotivated to achieve.

I spent the day dyking around the house with my love Gina. This was a remarkable time in its own right and will have it's own post soon. At one moment, Ryan came outside to ask me something and I looked at him and started crying. I hugged him and told him I was proud of him and loved him very much. He was unsure of what to do with a sobbing mother. I managed to gather myself together for the actual graduation. Which was a good thing given the dynamics of the all the persons attending. My daughter was there and didn't care to seek me out. I had to find her and pull her over to meet Gina. My first ex-husband wouldn't make eye contact with me. And the rest of his clan tried very hard to pretend I wasn't there. I wasn't able to introduce Gina to anyone else. She began to fade into the background at one point and I went running back to stand beside her, grabbing her hand making sure she and everyone else knew she was an important part of the group.

James came to see Ryan graduate too. James has spent 10 years of his life raising that boy only to be treated like it doesn't count because of our divorce. As if all his love, time, emotion and direction is null and void. This angers me more than I can ever express. James loves those kids. They were his first children. Whether they know it or not, his influence will always be with them. I hope one day they will appreciate him.

The Utah gang came to celebrate with Ryan and Erin (girlfriend) with a nice dinner out. I wasn't invited. So I hugged my boy, Gina hugged her soon-to-be step-son and I left him in his moment of glory.

I spent the rest of the weekend weepy. Dealing with the emotions of 18 years of parenting. Of allowing misrepresentations of myself and my actions by a father who has never put anyone else, including his children, first. He is a totally self-serving bastard. There, I said it. I don't really know how he stands himself. If his children ever knew the shit he has said and done to me they wouldn't believe it anyway. I have protected that man in order for the children to have an untainted relationship with him. I busted my ass to keep them connected. I sacrificed time with my new husband so that he could spend time with his kids. His financial obligations ended with his automatic child support deposit each month. How he could have ever believed that $500 a month would cover all those broken bones, illnesses, school fees and plane tickets I will never know. I made a promise to myself that it was always the children first. Up till now I have held it inside. (Unless you count the time last year when I finally had enough of his shit and told him so while sobbing on the phone. He had the nerve to call and ask that I pay half of an eye doctor bill for Nicole while I was staring at a $1200 bill for my son's bone scan. This 46 year old man began to mock the way I was crying. I managed to blurt out "You are fucking amazing." and he said, "I know I am." Fucker. He then told me never to talk to him again and never contact "his" daughter again all because I expected him to start being monetarily accountable for his half.) Damn it, I am angry. 18 years worth of angry. It's tight around my neck threatening to pull my head from my shoulders tendon by tendon.

I hate what he has done to me. I hate him for influencing my children's perceptions of me. He should be ashamed of his actions, of his words, of his uncompassionate soul and his never ending desire to be adored at the expense of the truth.

So dear friends, that is the story behind the morterboard and the baby shoes. Parenting will break your heart. I am working toward resolving my anger; trying to remember again that it is still because of the children that I remain quiet. It's not their shit to deal with. It never will be.