doing the work

Hi ya'll-
this is KK.

I have to tell you I've been a bit nervous to post anything. N (as we will now call the previous injector, for now I am the injector!!), as you all probably have noticed, has quite a way with words and I am a little nervous about following her act.

That said, I thought I should log (or would it be blog) in and tell you what has been going on with us even if I am no where near as entertaining!

N is sick. Very sick. Sick with a capital S sick.

I make her an english muffin with Jiffy on it and she eats two bites. Christmas Eve? An english muffin with peanut butter that she ate in entirety. Christmas day dinner? We had a feast at my best friend from childhood's families house and she ate.... (drum roll please)... half of one dinner roll.

Friends of ours passed over some ovaltine and that is going really well. Indeed- once this sickness has passed I am quite certain she will never want to see a jar of ovaltine again!!!



And last night at another gathering of good friends, she ate 4 small pieces of french bread with cheddar cheese.

I know, I know, you are saying to yourselves: why, KK, it sounds like she is eating a ton! And, it sounds like she is out and about doing all sort of festive activities!

You are completely correct- N has been a real trooper tagging along with me. We went to her families for Christmas Eve and morning, then to my families and other friends in Detroit on Christmas Day. On Boxing Day, I actually kidnapped her after going to the U of M Birthing Center to fill out paperwork and get all of her appointments set. We went to Riverside Arena in Livonia to a rollerskating party (yes, you read that right!), and then to see friends in from Florida in Ann Arbor.



But everywhere we go she either lays under a blanket or sits on the couch. With a blank look in her eye and with "fog in her head", or so she says. Which is all good and fine with me and with everyone she sees. I think that really, she is the only one having a problem with it. She doesn't like to feel sick (really, who does?) but she REALLY doesn't like it. She can't deal with it- and not being able to deal with it spirals her into further depression.

Before our 3 days of being out and about she was confined to the couch for a week. Her dad [FYI: her family is being totally and completely amazing about her being pregnant. Really supportive and loving. It is beautiful to watch], understanding depression, asked the real questions: are you taking showers? (answer: no); are you exercising? (answer: no). And he told her that she HAS to take a shower and she HAS to exercise. You can't go from riding your bike 20 miles a day to not doing a single thing but lying on the couch and expect that the lack of endorphins won't mess you up. So true, so true, Mr. G. So she took some showers and then used the treadmill at their house. It really did help. Yay! (and now that we have -what 70 degree weather, ha ha- above freezing weather I will go out on walks with her and Pookah the dog. Or kidnap her again to go to the gym (she is extremely afraid of being anywhere should she need to vomit. Which she is deathly afraid of, I am sure she has mentioned somewhere in this blog).

She has lost about 5-8 lbs at this point.

I am feeling o.k. with all of this- I know she will be okay. She will gain the weight back and much much more, she will feel better, she will be happy again, she will be active, she will learn to trust her body and love her body and except the innate wisdom of herself.

She has to do the work of pregnancy.

the work

Well I am 6 and half weeks along into this pregnancy, and it is the craziest place I have ever been in my life.

I have this overwhelming feeling of something like guilt but not quite guilt hanging over my head. All of the hopelessness that had built a warrior wall around my heart should be crumbling to pieces and taking on the cloak of thankfulness, but there is still this roar of why me so fast, so just like that, so on the very first try--when for so long we tried with k and we had so much disappointment?

And now here I am with implantation of a wee seed and with a thousand worries manifesting in my mind. See kk is such a vessel of peace and stability, and I am such a vessel of mind chatter. I know crawling through this mind chatter and leaving pieces of it behind is part of my life work, but I keep asking myself can I do it? Am I strong enough? And then I know I am, but how do we really stop telling ourselves stories that fill up the spaces between the known and unknown. Cause really that is what worry is, right? The trying to make sense out of the great unknown...and assigning meanings (whether the meanings are right or not) to the various ways we feel and the various physical responses we experience in our bodies and the various realities that surface all around us everyday.

I am trying to be as chill as I can be. I am trying to take every new crook and turn in my body with a nod and a mantra of all is well with my body and the new life within it. But I feel very weak and inept. I want to be a good partner, good friend, good daughter, good person and right now I feel a bit too self-obsessed to be good.

Not having much of an appetite and forcing food down my throat plus hormonal changes is contributing to this sort of emotional wave riding, but I wanted to get this overall state of being out through writing. It will flit and flight away too and then come back to rest on my rib cage and then leave for a taste of thistle seed and then land again transformed a bit different but with new stories on the tip of its beak and I will try to learn from the chatter by saying hello and petting its wings and then letting it go.

happy shock

Thank you all so much for your kind words and support and voices of surprise!

I am still in shock. It is happy shock. I am trying to wrap my head and heart around all of this. A kind of terror and excitement and simply being are the three things surfacing in my life right now. I really am digging just curling up on the couch at night with my kk and drawing and painting and watching silly christmas specials. We have been needing this nesting time and I think it may be a pattern for us for the next many, many months.

It is so early on and there seem to be so many things to find out and know, but I realize that we have time to get it all together. I just really never contemplated a vision of my birth experience or the reality of having a wee critter living inside of me.

There was a time in my early, early twenties when I did dream, for a brief moment, of having many kids (like six or something) and I did think my body would carry those little lives into being, so...I turn back to that.

Well, I have to go drag my tired, tired self out into a semi-blizzard and walk dear pookah.

I'm sure I'll be blathering like mad on this thing once my heart is a bit more settled.

Amazing + Absurd = the lives of kk and the injector

Um, ya.

So, remember how we slung some seed up me a few weeks back?
And do you remember how it was the first time I had ever done such a thing?
And do you remember how long we have been trying to get my kk pregnant?

I will synopsify the attempts to get kk pregnant here:
18 months of trying (may 07-nov 08)
20 months total since the start of the whole endeavor
80 inseminations
4 visits to reproduction clinic
3 months on clomid (devil, devil, devil drug)

And then the one time on a whim when kk thought me fertile and our donor and kk decided to play a game of brief back and forth, snarky emails throughout the day--planning in sinister and loving cahoots the injection of me.

Come that night, two days before thanksgiving 2008, my love shot me up with this potential life giving fluid. She did it so gracefully and passionately my heart sprung a leak of everlasting love.

Well nearly three weeks since that fateful night, I have peed on 3 pregnancy sticks—two on Monday the 8th of December (almost 6 hours apart) and one on Friday the 12th of December after missing my period by two and a half days and all of them have shouted the positive PREGNANT.

Now on Monday evening, you should have seen me in clear and intense shock; stunned to a sit down on my ass stupor. Well you can see it below in the action photo sequence that kk took of me.

Anyhow, I tested a day and half before my period was due and got the positives. I did not start my period, and this morning (six days later) no period and moving into what seems to be my fifth week of pregnancy.

And still I am in a state of disbelief, but I am so in tune with my body that I do notice the distinct changes; abdominal pulling, gassy belly, super sleepy, bits of nausea and then me wiggling and turning and staying wide awake for hours on end when I should be sleeping. Though the last two nights, I have slept deep and fully and had crazy vivid dreams.

So, there you have it. I am carrying a little seed critter. After all of this trying and hoping and being let down and trying again and hoping some more and hitting our heads against so many elusive and hard walls, we tried this one time with me, and bang it worked. Like my mama asked, “N, do you think this is a miracle?” In some way, it is; it really, really is. I mean one time—the one time that semen has ever entered my body and presto.

At this time, I am pregnant. And kk and I are hoping with all of the hope we can muster from the deep steamy, stinking parts of our guts and the bloody, pumping parts of our hearts that this wee critter sticks and stays with us and chooses to be part of our lives.

p.s. I was hesitant about putting this up here cause I know how very early along I am, but I am trying to live each moment of this newness in joy and deep inquisitiveness.

p.s. kk is very thrilled and happy about all of this and together we will work through the sadness connected to the months and months and nearly two years of the trying without implantation that she has been through. Also, she will become a frequent guest poster here at injection reflections since she seems to be the more capable injector of the two of us:)











We went Christmas tree shopping for the first time in our nearly 9 year relationship right after we got the first positive. We were in crazy moods; happy and stunned.

will i catch a pregnancy

We just arrived home from kk's dad's house. We watched jaws 2 with him and ate cupcakes for his 62nd birthday. our drive home was very, very slickery. Winter is here in good old Michigan. It is about 30 degrees and icy.


Icy drive home

On our way out to her pop's, I noticed that all the strip clubs on Michigan avenue were thumping--packed out parking lots--and this was at 5:30 on a Monday evening. It is strange that the economy is down real, real bad here in the previously motor ruled--now motor dying state and still horny men are spending cash on liquor and titty views. Oh, I guess it really is not all that strange. When you are down and out, what's better than some booze and boobs?

Anyhow, this post is not supposed to be about ladies' parts or a dying economy or automobiles. It really is supposed to be all about me and what's been up in our super busy, but then all quiet lives.

We had turkey day here at our queer pad again. I deep cleaned the house for many days. Then I cooked a hell of a lot. Then our family and friends arrived. Then we ate a lot of the food that was cooked. Then everybody left. Then K and I slept for hours and hours each night that we had left of our vacation/weekend. Then we did nothing at all. Then I chopped a huge chunk of skin out of my left index finger and it bled for 1.5 hours and hurt like hell for about 13 hours and is still swollen [in the last two months or so, I have wounded my hands by either slicing or burning multiple times; universe what message are you sending me?]. Then kk yelled at me to be more careful with knives. Then we relaxed.


me relaxing in the small dose of sun we have had in the last many, many weeks

Monday we went back to work.

Today, I am waiting patiently to see if the mother of all miracles is taking place inside my body. yes, my body. yes, many days back we shot some living fluid up into my body. It was done on a whim. I think nothing will come of it. Kk thought I was ripe so we injected me with some semen (but I pretended it was something else like special lubricant or something, because I have never had sperm in my body before--not ever).

See,I woke up and said, "I think I have fertile mucus." Then we went to work. Then kk called me at work and said, "baby, I think we should try on you tonight." Then potential bio-dad said cool. So, come nighttime, we did it.

I keep pretending I am a queer virgin mary (or a 17 year old girl who can get pregnant from leg crawling sperms) and this one time this special dose of jiz (god breathed into me through the saint like fingers of my loving kk and the plastic cavity of a syringe--yes like the kind you feed medicine to cats with--) will get me prego.

A shot in the dark for fucking real, and kind of fun all at once.

p.s. more to come soon about what's up with kk's repro office experience and our thoughts regarding the use of my womb for potentially carrying a wee critter into the world of the living.

i am conflicted

again, my kk started her period. i am convinced it is break time. but she does have an appointment with the reproduction doctor again on wednesday. he wants to try some different stuff. me, i do not want to try for the next couple months at all.

there's nothing like false hope.

i tend to be a cynical, stick in the mud, nasty ass bitch who likes to flip people off when they are annoying me.

i'm not always a bitch, but damn i sure can be one.

you should of all heard me yelling--in the quietude of my own house--profanities at heterosexuals the last few days. i cannot believe that this fucking world is even concerned with who consenting adults are fucking and building a life with. and once again i could go on and on, but really fuck you people who think my life is immoral; fuck you people who think you can tell me what i can or cannot put into my body; and fuck you you people who take for granted the fact that you have heterosexual privilege.

yes heterosexual privilege is a beast looming over my shoulder. it has hot breath and it stinks. and guess what i am tired of it not being looked at or dissected or challenged. can you all even believe that some of the robo calls for prop 8 said things about there being an overwhelming amount of gay characters on television. yeah right, sometimes i crave queer representation in pop culture or in my day-to-day life so bad that i have to watch but i'm a cheerleader for the umpteenth time or re-read annie on my mind again and again to get my fix.

a few weeks ago i saw a suburu commercial on logo that told this lovely little story of this twin who dedicated her life to orphans in africa. she spent her free time in the wilderness with her partner--or a woman looking person who appeared to be her partner--and i got all fucking weepy over it. yes, weepy over a goddamn tv commercial for a not very fuel efficient vehicle.

so check it hets. representations of your love are everywhere. everywhere. male cock in lady socket over and over and over. man tongue in woman mouth. man hand in woman hand, a loving embrace between a het couple, over and over and over and over. and over. i am almost choking on it now.

do you know that the only gay person i was aware of growing up was the art teacher at my high school who was followed home from a gay bar and murdered by two men in his shower.

yep. that's it.

i walked around in layers of gender ambiguity trying to understand why i felt so connected to some of my female friends with no examples; no direction; no anything.

and today,in highschool, is it much different?

today, we are experiencing the back lash of our steps forward. we are wallowing in the hatred of the religious and suffocating in the residue of heterosexual privilege and representation. gay folks strive to reproduce a nuclear version of family that mimics the very foundations of the people so hell-bent on denying and destroying gayness. i am guilty of it. i try to replicate heteronormative ways of being just by attempting to grow my family biologically with kk and living in a committed, monogamous relationship.

i want us all to be open to difference; to reliance on created, extended family/ non-nuclear family structures and non-bio family structures, and i do not want to be wrapped in the confines of the dangerous and destructive status quo. and i do not want to rely on pop-culture or other media representation for any kind of assurance that people like me are out there, and at the same time, my heart yearns for the familiar, for that which feels like home--for the beauty of women sharing passion and lust and love.

ultimately , i am conflicted and mad as hell and wanting to just cry real hard and everything be okay...

my family and a kick in the face

I do not really blog about my bio family here very much. Not sure why. I love them all a whole hell of a lot. They are good people. We differ on some things when it comes to politics and religion. But overall, spending time with them is pretty painless, and most of the time we have good old fun.

I have two nephews and a niece who i adore.

of course, I do not live on top of my family. I'm the outsider--the kid who moved away. See, I grew up two doors down from my dad's mother and just over a mile away from my ma's mother. And today my sister with the kids lives about 7 houses away from my parents and my baby sister lives in the house my mother grew up just over a mile away from my parents'. My cousins were, for the most part, more like my siblings growing up cause barely any of my parents' multitude of brothers and sisters moved away. Over the years the extended family has grown apart, but my immediate family is still tight (that is except for me; I am close to them but not as close as they are to one another).

My sisters and my ma worked at the same salon for years and just recently my sister ez and my ma opened a salon and spa that my other sister also works at. So, they are up in one another's business all day everyday.

I'm the only one who went away to school (post high school). My ma is a manicurist; my sis ez is an facialist; my sis e is a hairdresser and my pop is a roofer. then there's me...a boyish girl activist/community organizer/advocate. oh, and i am a dyke.

why, today, am i sitting here writing about my family? i guess i've been thinking about how my mom really taught me to be a storyteller and a lover of all things beautiful and interesting. And i've been thinking about the stories she tells me about my nephews and niece and how those stories make me giggle and trigger a joyful heart and remind me of why children are such an important part of the human landscape.
In addition to the stories my ma shares about the kids, k and I do get to spend time with them too and we always walk away with a smile on our faces and a little more meaning in our lives.

On halloween, we hung at my ma's and the kids were so funny and full of life. My nephew, j, loves the camera and so we staged some photos and he took the shots. this one is the kick in the face.



a note: we are waiting for k's period to erupt at any moment. neither of us have any confidence that she is pregnant this time around.

I'll keep referring to the joy of the kids who are already here in order to cover the grimness of this struggle.

again the wait

Waiting again. Kk took Clomid this cycle and it fucked her up more than ever. Once again, she did not get an LHsurge and so we just shot semen into the wind.

Our gracious, gracious donor ejaculated the goods approximately six times and maybe during that time k dropped an egg that was robust and full of life and needing to meet a syrupy mate.

who knows?

If nothing occurs this time around, we are taking a break for sure.

we do want a kid. we want to be parents. we want to grow our family. but we are content as is. we are busy motherfuckers.

in all of this longing for children, i have turned inward and often thought what does it mean to be loved; what does it mean to love; do i love well; can i love better; is having a child a selfish endeavor to discover the depths of my love?

some simple answers, and yes, these are super simple answers.
what does it mean to be loved? to open up to love.
what does it mean to love? to give always and know how to accept the love of others.
do i love well? sometimes...
can i love better? always...
is having a child a selfish endeavor to discover the depths of my love? yes and no.

maybe in the end we will remain childless and we will love each other and our family (birth and chosen) with a fierce devotion that grows every minute in its complexity and chaos.

who knows what tomorrow might bring...

Beyond Marriage

After elation over the historic nomination of BO as the next prez of the good ol usa, I slunk into a state of sorrowfulness. Yesterday, I was wallowing in the aftermath of the four other big events that developed on Tuesday—the anti-gay propositions that passed in California, Arizona, Florida, and Arkansas. Mostly, I am sad that so, so many Americans are still so heterosexist and homophobic and ultimately hateful.

I’ve been going back and forth with people about the categories of human emotion and states of being that underlie the motivations of people to vote for the passage of discriminatory laws. We tend to lean on the whole notion that fear or ignorance or misunderstanding lead to these actions. We do this to trick ourselves into believing that the meanness is not there. Well, I am tired of doing that; I will name the motivating feature as hatefulness and meanness. In the end, fear and ignorance may be there too, but fear and ignorance manifest hateful actions. And I think it helpful to call it what it is…

With that rant, I have to then explain that I came back to a place of solid ground late yesterday afternoon. I revisited--it originally came out in 2006--what I believe to be a beautiful document—a document that captures my own heart and moves beyond this thing the “gay” movement (whatever that might be) has become so very focused on. We need real heart change in this country. We need to use our love and our smarts to wage a proactive movement that is bigger than the status quo and the religious right. I think this document for Beyond Marriage does a great job of outlining a visionary framework that is inclusive and inter-sectional and full of loving intentions that can overcome the hate we saw in action on Tuesday.

I’ve pasted the executive summary below. You can get the full text at Beyond Marriage

The time has come to reframe the narrow terms of the marriage debate in the United States. Conservatives are seeking to enshrine discrimination in the U.S. Constitution through the Federal Marriage Amendment. But their opposition to same-sex marriage is only one part of a broader pro-marriage, “family values” agenda that includes abstinence-only sex education, stringent divorce laws, coercive marriage promotion policies directed toward women on welfare, and attacks on reproductive freedom. Moreover, a thirty-year political assault on the social safety net has left households with more burdens and constraints and fewer resources.

Meanwhile, the LGBT movement has recently focused on marriage equality as a stand-alone issue. While this strategy may secure rights and benefits for some LGBT families, it has left us isolated and vulnerable to a virulent backlash. We must respond to the full scope of the conservative marriage agenda by building alliances across issues and constituencies. Our strategies must be visionary, creative, and practical to counter the right's powerful and effective use of marriage as a “wedge” issue that pits one group against another. The struggle for marriage rights should be part of a larger effort to strengthen the stability and security of diverse households and families. To that end, we advocate:

Ø Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families – regardless of kinship or conjugal status.

Ø Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.

Ø Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.

Ø Freedom from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:

· Single parent households

· Senior citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden Girls)

· Blended and extended families

· Children being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents

· Adult children living with and caring for their parents

· Senior citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives

· Close friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers

· Households in which there is more than one conjugal partner

· Care-giving relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.

The current debate over marriage, same-sex and otherwise, ignores the needs and desires of so many in a nation where household diversity is the demographic norm. We seek to reframe this debate. Our call speaks to the widespread hunger for authentic and just community in ways that are both pragmatic and visionary. It follows in the best tradition of the progressive LGBT movement, which invented alternative legal statuses such as domestic partnership and reciprocal beneficiary. We seek to build on these historic accomplishments by continuing to diversify and democratize partnership and household recognition. We advocate the expansion of existing legal statuses, social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households.

We call on colleagues working in various social justice movements and campaigns to read the full-text of our statement “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision,” and to join us in our call for government support of all

my obsession with the condom aisle

tonight we were at target and I scoped the condom area to see if there were dental dams included in the mix. no dental dams. and yes, I do scope these aisles almost every single time i am in a drug type store. there are never dental dams. never ever ever.

over the years the variety of condoms and other straight sex paraphernalia (or at least marketed for straight sex paraphernalia) has increased by leaps and bounds. in this day and age all of you limp dicked fellows can buy a condom with a vibe built right in so your stick gets a tickle of intense delight and maybe it also pleases your partner-- m or f, but i would not know cause i do not have a real cock/fake cock that needs covered with such a device.

woah, i just reread those two sentences and they seem a little pornographic and really this blog was supposed to be about my obsession with checking the condom/ky jelly for him and her (never her and her or him and him)/vibrating condom aisle to see if, miraculously, dental dams were being stocked, but alas my words digressed to the vibrating condom. If any of you have used these special 6 dollar condoms, please do tell about the effectiveness of such a device here in the comment section.

the safe sex aisle at the drug store is all about the condoms. now, some of you might think it is fine to simply cut up a condom and make your own dental dam, but that entails needing scissors or a razor blade or a knife in what could be a hot moment.

and since there are never any dental dams sold at drug stores, you should know how to make one just in case!

kk and I engage in let it all hang out sex cause we only have sex with one another. But let me tell you a brief story that set me on this path of scoping out the condom/ky jelly/intense heat for her or him aisle. Many years ago when kk and i fucked like rabbits one or two or three times a day, we each got our own bout vaginal bacteria infections. the doc advised us to use dental dams, but alas there were no fucking dental dams to be found anywhere except of course good ol' planned parenthood. After looking for dental dams to no avail, I vowed to wage a letter writing campaign to walgreens to express my outrage at their lack of sensitivity to oral sex lovers everywhere, but i let that battle go:)kk and I took a break from feasting on one another, our bouts of yickiness cleared up and then we went back to the delights of all different ways to do it and be pleased!

I still always scope the drug stores just in case one day I am surprised and I can truly let the battle for more dental dams go.

Below is some information on dental dams from Brown University's health page. Bravo Brown for giving the DD some recognition!

What is a dental dam and why should I use one?
Dental dams are small, thin, square pieces of latex that are used for oral-vaginal or oral-anal sex. They get their name from their use in dental procedures. Dental dams help to reduce the transmission of STIs during oral sex by acting as a barrier to vaginal and anal secretions that contain bacteria and viruses. They come in a variety of sizes and flavors - so you can find a dam that satisfies your tastes.

How effective are they in preventing STIs?
Because dental dams act as a barrier to bodily fluids, they help reduce STI transmission. Many STIs, such as herpes, genital warts and HIV, can be transmitted through oral sex. Like condoms, dental dams must be used correctly and consistently in order to be effective.

How do I use them?
Although it may seem a little awkward to use them at first, dental dams are extremely easy to use. Before using the dam you may want to rinse off any powder that's on the dam and check the dam to make sure there are no holes or perforations. The partner performing oral sex will hold the dam against the vulva or anus of the receiving partner. You can opt to apply a lubricant on the vulva or anus before using the dam. The lubricant can help increase the sensation for the recipient. Just make sure the lubricant is a water-based lube because oil-based lubes and lotions can degrade the latex and decrease the dam's effectiveness.

When you use the dental dam, be sure to ONLY use one side. Don't flip the dam over for another round because you will expose yourself to the very fluids you're trying to avoid! And do not re-use a dam on another body part (e.g. from anus to vulva or vice-versa) because you can transfer germs from one body area to another. Do not re-use a dam for another act of oral sex later on either. Dams are for one-time use only.

Won't using a dental dam diminish the whole experience of oral sex?
Many people believe that using a dam will nullify the enjoyment of oral sex. That's not how it has to be! Granted, the feeling of latex will be different than a tongue, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Using a dental dam with lube can offer your partner a new type of stimulation. Although oral sex is considered less risky than vaginal or anal sex, there is still a risk of transmitting STIs. To be as safe as possible, use a dental dam for every act of oral sex.

2000 and 34 and 2

Big numbers came to visit me over the last week.

Early last week I hit 2000 miles on my Trek Portland. I purchased it the last week of May and then was unable to ride it for almost 7 days cause I was gone to Philly for work. So in 4 and a half months I put 2000 miles on the thing!! woo hoo. Right now, the odometer reads 2060! So I am on track for hitting 5000 in one year!

On Friday my kk turned 34! I've known her since she was 24. She is growing older with grace and her beautiful heart makes me so proud. We celebrated her birthday in detroit. We actually stayed there at the RenCen thursday and friday for the NLG Convention. We were there for work and mixed two days of fun with it. R and A stayed with us in a hotel room and we were able to spend good quality time with the two of them and have fun and lounge around and get some work in all at the same time.


the rencen from the riverwalk

On K's birthday we walked the Detroit river walk and checked out the labor sculpture in hart plaza and went to supper at a not so good restaurant, but we had fun with good friends. And then we ended up at Cliff Bell's and had a great time listening to some local jazz.


me in front of broken chains; part of the hart plaza labor legacy landmark. the sculpture really moved me as it coincided with the one of the themes of the weekend--social justice and prisoner rights!


more of the labor legacy landmark...

And then on Sunday, we--the spokespeople of bike ypsi--held our 2nd Fall ride. It was a good day. Lots of new folks came out for pedaling.


ready to ride


happy after the ride

In trying to get pregnant land--kk started her period again today. and so it is...

The Rising

Thank you to all of you real live people out there who are so kind and thoughtful and supportive!

I'm feeling better nowadays.

Kk tells me that this blog is quite somber. It is true. I seem to use it as a therapeutic tool. I've really never been able to find a good therapist until I met blog world. But, I am so far from all somber all the time.

I love life. I love sucking the marrow out of my every day. I love eating and playing and working and thinking and sitting and biking and walking and dreaming and sleeping and waking and doing it all again and again.

While I was wallowing in my own self pity last week, I failed to let you in on something beautiful that we were able to experience.

Last Monday Bruce Springsteen played a free concert/Obama rally right up the road from our house. Many of you know I love the boss a whole hell-of-a-lot. So, in this time of uncertainty and struggle, it was so fitting to get to participate in a special treat.



Bruce in Ypsilanti

He played an acoustic set. The set list: The Promised Land, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Thunder Road, Devils and Dust, Used Cars, No Surrender, the Rising, and This Land is Your Land.

This is a video of the speech he gave in Philadelphia (he gave the same one in Ypsilanti during the show we saw last Monday). I was moved to tears on that cool Michigan late afternoon as the nearly setting sun beamed out from behind clouds at the end of the set. I shut of my over-analytical mind for a few moments and let the idea of an "american dream" that is just and right for all people and the planet settle over me. The actual text of his speech is below the video. Enjoy!




I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.

I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real: opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

Quiet

It is fall here in Michigan, and I've been very quiet on this blog lately.
Business accounts for some of the quietness. But, frustration and tiredness with this whole process really accounts for most of the silence.

I have tried to protect our relationship throughout this trying to get pregnant fiasco, and I have done a semi-decent job. I have been there for k through her ups and downs. But it has taken a toll on my emotional well-being. What and who am I in all this?

I already experience a hell-of-a-lot of emotional endurance in the work I do and in the things I care about.

I need a break from this pregnancy shit. I did not want to try this month and we only were able to shoot her up once and k put that clomid shit back into her body for no real reason because we were away from our donor over the weekend and she surged super early cause clomid sucks. and if for some fucking reason this time around one dose of sperm 8-12 hours before her surge does the trick I would pass out. But really and this is for fucking real I HAVE NO HOPE...

and I am done with it.

i like my childless life just fucking fine.
and now I will go back to my silence.

flying high; flying low

The days have been flying so fast by my eyes that I feel more winded than I have in a long time.

On Thursday, I flew to California for the Critical Resistance 10 year anniversary conference.

Kk and I spoke on the phone, of course, when I got there and a few times on Friday. I noticed that her emotional state seemed a bit wobbly--much more unstable than usual. See, kk is my rock. She is level-headed and good-natured, but she has also always been a bit reserved with her emotions. She holds things in and let's life go on around her.

On Friday my friend at the conference asked me how kk was doing and I said not so good; she has been down; she is in a strange place.

So on Saturday morning when I spoke with her and she was weeping like a wet fish and had been for hours before she spoke with me,I knew she had fallen into a place she had never been before. When I said let's change my flight so I can come home to you early and she did not say, "no, I'll be okay", I really knew she was not okay.

Clomid has invaded her range of emotions and caused her to crash into a fragility that scares us both.

Kk booked me a red eye; it left 12 hours after I spoke with my weepy beautiful girl.
I still was able to attend most of the conference (all Friday and Saturday), have dinner and beers with friends on Saturday and make it to the San Fransisco airport 2 hours early.

I took my allergy medicine and hoped that I would sleep like a baby on the three hour flight to Minneapolis where I had a layover and plane change. But, I slept like a person trapped in a thrashing nightmare. My ass burned with the residue of sitting for too many hours over a 3 day period and my head was filled with worry for my girl and the natural worry that surfaces in the pit of my stomach every time I leave solid ground and launch my body via airplane into the sky.

I made it home to my sweet baby at 9:30 am eastern time. I was sleep deprived and stuffy headed, but wrapping my arms around her slight body and knowing I was there to help hold her fragile heart made me smile with serenity.

Amidst this emotional turmoil, she has restarted the Clomid (this time a double dose). I am not so happy about any of it, but it is what she wants to do.

We are now setting off into the dreary midst of more western medicine induced depression, but I cannot blame her weariness on the Clomid alone. There is something ominous hovering in the air around us. I think the sheer fact that a bigot the size of Sarah Palin could actually be put into a seat that gives her power to be one step away from the presidency is the epitome of that hovering, grim cloud.

As a queer person, I am feeling the gloom of the potential repression that accompanies the ideology of closed-minded, hate-filled holders of power. All of this is only the surface of my thinking on how the context of politics and culture directly impacts the inner-workings of our emotions. All of that analysis is for another day...

In the meantime, I will be holding my girl through this ever-changing ride.

my thumb tip is dangling and hope is dried up...

i am having a hell of a week.

and now when i thought i would write an update here on this public blathersphere, i can barely type.

see, i sliced off (well actually it is a flap of 1/4 inch skin) part of my thumb tip this morning. the best thing about slicing my thumb, besides kk taking great care of it, was it made me forget about my headache.

on a heavier note--clomid sucks. kk took it this cycle and then failed to ever get an LH surge. she has always surged, usually for 12 hours and now she takes this drug and does not surge at all...

i am over this.

we are both at the end of our ropes and will most likely take a break from all things pregnancy related. we did inject a few times based on the days that k typically ovulates, but i have no hope. it has been dried up or washed down the drain or strung up on the wall like miserable christmas lights.

that's it.

update over...

i will not crush her/his heart

I just drank a couple of beers and ate a super cheesy veggie burger at one of our smoky watering holes.

kk and i had a nice time sitting there talking to one another and sitting there staring at one another and sitting there listening to the not so delightful open mic in the other room.

my dinner came out with a mini-bag of better maid potato chips in the red plastic basket that held my veg burger. better maids always throw me back to my childhood. no matter what, i get sent down that rabbit hole of littleness. my ma ate the things by the handful. for the first years of my life (up until age 7), she lived on better maids, coca cola, and marlboro reds. yes, my mama was an avid smoker. she weighed all of 110 pounds and ran around like a chicken with her head cut off.

she was and is an excellent mother and grandmother. and i really fear getting into some of the sad parts of my past here in public, but there is a connection to the present.

and those damn better maids fueled this important conversation about childrearing over at the bar tonight.

my parents believed it was okay to hit their kids (they no longer believe this, but it is a little too late for me). so, one of the hard pieces connected to me really coming to the decision to have a kid with kk was the fact that i was raised getting smacked around by both of my parents, and sometimes that smacking did get out of hand.

couple the legacy of a childrearing style that i am deeply opposed to (that is the smacking and whipping and hitting of kids to keep them in line)with my huge-ass temper that was (i believe) birthed out of the violence i was exposed to (and subsequently inflicted on my sister, Eone,--we fought physically like angry wind up boxing dolls) and well...

while i know i could never raise a hand to a child, it is the raising of my voice and the brutality of the words that are capable of coming out of my mouth that have me still, to this day, concerned.

i have intense mood swings. kk is more than kind and puts up with the fierceness that piles up in my heart and then spills like toxic waste out of my mouth (and sometimes just my eyes or my body language). I go to dark places--places that only a few people, closest to me, see or know about or maybe even recognize. over the years these bouts of intense anger and depression have lessened, but still they do come on and kk asked me today," you will not crush our kid's heart with your words will you?"

and i promised, "i will not crush her/his heart."

and i do promise that. and i work everyday on lessening the legacy of the wounds of simply being alive among people who also were exposed to harshness and dysfunction as children, my parents. i hate to even use the word dysfunction cause all in all i believe that life itself is chaotic and many things are out of the path of reason and human understanding, but my parents did the best with what they knew and were exposed to and they loved me in spite of their anger and fragility.

and i will do the best with what i know and who i am and the support i have encircling me. no crushing here. i know this to be true, cause even though my heart may have been pinned down at times by my parents (this is true as a child and by the hurtfulness connected to their reaction and resistance to the revelation of my queerness), my heart has never been crushed. however, it has been tempered and tarnished, polished and pressed and now it pumps harder for what is right and good than it ever has before.

my girl is so hot and fast!

today k and i rode home from work in 90 degree heat; it was steamy.
so, we were riding along--kind of slow cause my knee is still all fucky, but not too slow by any means--and this macho dude on his bicycle zooms past us on the grass on the right of the path we were riding on. He totally startled me and the move was straight up rude (bike rules are like car rules pass on the left).

His move made me think that he was showing off his speediness and being a semi-asshole.

Now, my kk can ride fast. she can ride like the wind. she is determined and persistent and fucking hot as hell on her new surly long haul trucker with its bar end shifters. Have i ever reflected here about how sexy i think women are when driving stick shift cars? well, i have the same reaction to women and bar end shifters--there is a loveliness in the arms of women as they reach from the top of the handle bars to the ends and the little motion it takes to shift.

so, i whispered over to kk, "go pass that guy. you can ride way faster than he can. go blow his overly zealous shared path passing ass for a whirl. seriously, go ahead; i'll catch up with ya later."

she smiled and busted a hot and beautiful move. she picked up speed; blew past him on the left, after calling out "on your left." and then she was gone and the right hand passer was left in the dust of my hotty.

I found her later at the end of the path. she was waiting for me all sweaty and gorgeous with a smirk on her summer face.

she is also extra hot cause she started the clomid and it makes her sweat. her period is done and over. she has one clomid left and then we wait for the great egg drop followed by another do it at home with injector injecting sperm sloshing party.

but back to my baby on a bicycle; she is really so strong and sexy. her calves are like carved marble rocks--elegant and shapely and when she pedals fast and hard like she did today, well she makes me kind of pant in my pants...

number 100-rage at the re

How terribly appropriate that my one-hundredth post on this lovely blog will be all about the very thing that brought me to the land of web-bio-blather--trying to get my girlfriend (oh and she is so much more than a girl that is a friend) pregnant.

I cannot begin to explain the fury and sadness that erupted in my heart at the doctor's office this morning. But i can describe this uncontrollable swelling of tears that merged onto the edges of my eyes in front of a resident. I got this zippy electric pulse in my cheek bones that I could not shake and then the tears mounted the little pink precipice of the tender flesh that lines my eye sockets and i blinked 100 times to try to keep them in, but to no avail.

I do not like the reproductive specialist we go to. It is not because he is a bad guy or anything like that. It is because U of M medical is a teaching network and we keep having to be asked a million questions by different residents/doctors/students before we see the "specialist". Before it did not bother me all too much, but today, oh today, it struck a nerve and let me tell you why.

The resident who came in and slammed us with all of the questions laid out the steps we need to go through now that the multitude of test results are back. The steps included:
1. we try Clomid (big surprise there)
2. if and when Clomid does not work we move onto IUI with the fresh sperm (this is where the fury set in)
3. If IUI does not work move onto more drugs/FHS shenanigans.
4. Finally, when all else fails they would suggest In Vitro.

Okay, so we had to inform aforementioned resident that because k is not sexually intimate with potential bio-dad we cannot use his fresh sperm for an IUI. Now why--why did I have to use my breath on informing someone at this professional establishment this already painful-to-me knowledge? the head doc had already explained it to us for the second time back at the very first visit--apology all wrapped up in the explanation. And now we were informing the resident about our ass-backwards health code...

Anyhow, I got pissed as you can probably tell. But what I am really pissed about is this--instead of hanging his head and telling us how sorry he is that he cannot perform a fresh (washed of course) semen IUI in his office, why can't he offer up the notion that maybe he would be willing to organize some RE folks to work to get the ass-backwards health code changed so that same-sex couples have as much decision making power as straight people to put what semen they choose into their bodies?

He did tell us that he thinks we should have our known donor start the freezing/quarantine process now so that in case step 1 (Clomid and progesterone and DIY at home with the graciously donated fresh sperm ) does not work after a few months we will be ahead of the game--the quarantine process takes 6 months--and ready to move on to step two (that is step two for queer people which makes that fresh sperm frozen sperm).

At this time we will just stick with the drugs and the fresh jiz. I am too livid about once again being told what i (or my lover) can and/or cannot do with our bodies to start investigating what the extra money slam of freezing and quarantining the sperm of potential bio-dad would cause to our already depleted bank account.

Fuck the government...essentially they are once again giving straight people a financial break. The implications of their flawed health code do more than simply demoralize me as a gay woman; they also place an unfair financial burden on me--it would be much, much cheaper to use fresh sperm for the in office IUI.

But, fuck me too. how can I even begin to bitch about the cost when I have health insurance and so many people in this country do not? So, there it is bringing my rage full circle right back to my owning blathering heart.

Oh, and just so those of you who are not familiar with Michigan politics/legal shit know, we feel that it would severely jeopardize our already precariously constructed legal documents to try to pretend that K is sexually intimate with potential bio-dad. See, if we ever do get pregnant (that is kk ever does have a kid), I will have NO-ZILCH-NONE-AT-FUCKING-ALL rights to the kid here in MI. We do not have second-parent adoption; we have a constitutional amendment voted on by the MI public that bans gay-marriage for all time; we have an extremely conservative court system.

Basically, k and I have drafted up some legal documents that when push comes to shove could mean nothing at all.

If kk had a kid and then left this planet for the spirit world and then her dad or brother wanted to go after the kid, well they could and I might lose. Or if kk does have a kid and we end up in some conservative county in this state--that i keep loving for many reasons--and the kid gets hurt and k is not with us and i take the kid to the hospital they could be like, "you need to take a seat in the waiting room. (essentially, you don't matter--you queer fuck.)"

And now, I will end this ramble. but not without first pointing out that all of the rant above is deeply connected to desiring recognition and rights from an already extensively flawed system--i do not like the institution of marriage or the "rights" that have been built into it, and I have serious issues with the representative "democratic" government in this country. I believe a system based on representation will always keep many, many people and groups of people on the fringes, invisible and oppressed. So, my rant in its entirety is me wanting just for a minute to be part of the status quo and that in and of itself makes me sad...

roll with it

the view from the top of the resort!

our time up north is winding down. we will come home for our staycation tomorrow, and i will not go back to work until september 2--YES!

the vacation has been beautiful. it also all flew by way too quickly.

we've taken in so much sunshine and water and green living things and human beings.

it has also been a strange and bewildering time.

the first sunday we were here k's ex-girlfriend, A, arrived at the cabins with her 60 something aunt. they stayed in our cabin with us for four nights and then moved on over to cabin 11 after k's aunt A left-- aunt A was here for four days of our vacation and k's ex was here for 6 days.

(now, you all might be asking what was k's ex girlfriend doing hanging with you on your vaction? well, her mama died just a few weeks ago and she had come home from new orleans to michigan to be with her ma as she passed on and then she needed to get away from the mayhem of the aftermath of her passing, so she came up north and we happened to be up here when she was coming up.)

we were a motley crew of people wandering around the very northern tip of the lower peninsula and the southern end of the upper peninsula. two very butch dykes=ex and me. one super hot femme dyke=kk. one 87 year old woman with a walker and chemo running through her veins and chronically out her ass. one nearly 60 year old woman with her wits entirely about her and one 62 year old woman with her wits on the fritz.

The six of us hung out in st. ignace at the casino one afternoon. then the five of us, this is minus grandma c who needs to sleep a lot due to aforementioned chemo and diarrhea, hung out in one way, shape, or form the other evenings.

we drank beer together; we drank whiskey together; we played pool together; we talked late into the night together; we swam and hung in the sun together; we hung with the family p who was all up north at the same time as us together. what an elixir we all made.

we smeared northern michigan with quite a bit of queerness. it was all a bit tiring, but also fun. we even ended up at clyde's, the only business in carp lake, mi besides a mini-post office and a general store, one evening with k's dad and this fellow that lives in the trailer that k's other grandma used to live in. i know, entirely too much information, and why would you even care about any of this cause it has absolutely nothing to do with k trying to get pregnant or me bending down near her private parts and slinging jizz up on in, but it all does have to do with our incredibly complicated and yet so simple lives.



inside clyde's.

I mean the setting and props for our vacation were perfect--blue skies, luscious, deep bodies of water everywhere, plenty of fresh fish to nibble on, sunshine, blue skies, warm weather, water on skin, tiny bedroom with soft bed for sexual activity, forests--and then the characters for the vacation just kept growing in number and complexity.

i cannot do justice in writing about the weirdness that seemed almost totally normal to me over the last ten days, but i guess it is indicative of the ways in which our lives are hammered out in order to build us into these constantly changing beings. we suck up the circumstances of everyday and churn out as much beauty, meaning, and love as we can. sometimes we get cranky and fight and yell and behave badly. other times we just sit and take it all in--by all i mean whatever gets slung at us be it injuries, good times, old loves, old friends, family, moral dilemmas, justice, injustice, and all of the stuff of living and dying.

my learning this vacation has been all about gaining a better understanding of how to roll with it; whatever the it might be.

a perfectly beautiful uterus and other stuff...

me in four square costume
another crazy ass week is biting the dust. we've been busy little reproducers. a visit to the re happened last friday and k got her female organs prodded and picture snapped.

the doctor said all her soft, fleshy baby-making stuff (uterus, tubes, cervix, etc) are just perfectly beautiful.

we breathed a heavy sigh of relief with an anguished question of really? oh damn? connected to the relief sigh. mostly, we wanted to know why the fuck she has not gotten knocked up yet if everything is so perfectly beautiful.

this doctor was different than the other doctor cause other doctor was on vacay, but we think that k may need to go on clomid just to get her hormones in a perfectly succinct dance.

we've still been trying this time around. for what it is worth...?

My left knee ballooned up last thursday and is still swollen and it has me very pissed cause i've refrained from riding my bicycle for a few days and that makes me antsy and angry. see, i was on a roll--up until balloon knee--I had been putting 100 or more miles a week on the new bicycle. at 12 weeks old she had 1205 miles on her and now it is all at a stand still. my knees do this shit about twice a year and i am tired of it cause i am only 32...what will happen when i am 60?

last friday evening i participated in a four square tournament. i played on team rocket. we did not win, but we had the best costumes and did win a trophy named jan for our attire.
team rocket

Our good friend KG was in town all week and we had plenty of fun and good times.

and saturday we leave for vacation. carp lake here we come. we will be staying at k's dad's all seasons resort. This is my eighth summer going up there for vacay--it is kind of crazy how time flies.

where are your children?

Our friend dropped over last night with her young son. he went up stairs to go to the bathroom and came back wondering where we kept our children.

We informed him that we did not have any but we are working on it and he said we really should get some children.

oh, if only he knew...

in the meantime, i have had a killer week planning and executing a teach-in/rally for other women's children who were killed by the abusive prison system here in MI (a young man with bi-polar disorder died two years ago in a prison here n MI after being strapped down to a cement slab in a segregation cell for four days in extreme heat. and other people have also died or suffered tremendous hardship in segregation cells here in MI's prisons. this young man's mother wanted to hold up tim's memory on the 2 year anniversary of his death, so we held a rally at the capitol.) this rally ended up going well, but working with loved ones of people in prison leaves my heart all exposed and dented and ultimately it makes me really think about the unique trials and tribulations that families face when mental illness, "crime", violence, and/or poverty enter the spheres of people's realities.

and while i can do nothing to control my own or any other person's tomorrow, i do sometimes get into the domain of thinking long and hard about all of the fuckedupness of this world and, once again, venture down the path of why, why, why bring new life into this place. and i know i have ranted and raved about it here, but i know stories that you would tremble to hear about. i have heard directly from people about the torture they have experienced once in prison and i also know people who have done horrific things to people before going to prison. and the cycle of violence does not just touch my small corner of the world. some people's children are living through war everyday. imagine wondering every morning if you or your kid might get blown to bits or hit by a stray bullet today.

that i can in my own little privileged world even strive to create new life and have the calmness to reflect on if i should or not, is indicative of the disparities among all humans and it makes me not want to do anything but work to stop the madness.

so where are our children...all in all, my children are already with me. they are the people i work with everyday. they are my neighbors and my family (blood and created). they are the reason i work to try to make this world a better place...

suck nuts

not that I like to.
but I am sad—oh yes—once again.
because—you guessed it—k started bleeding Wednesday, yet again.

I’ve sort of lost count now but I think this is 13 times with no success.

so. suck.

she got her blood drawn friday for all the hormone testing.
we dropped a cup to potential bio dad for the sperm testing.
and Friday k will go get the ultra sound, etc.

I am also mad, not just sad, that I ever got in the business of wanting a kid.

cause it is getting too fucking complicated and I am tired of it.

i really did not have my hopes up this time i am convinced that something is up with kk's insides or that something has gone amiss with bio dad's fluids, but it is all a bit emotionally exhausting and for some reason i seem to take it worse than my lovely. i mean i have even started seriously contemplating what it would be like for me to be pregnant for 9 months and how i would need to learn to pack my fears in a tight little bag and banish them to the place beyond the atmosphere. this contemplating is strange territory for me and very premature, but these visions of a pregnant me are haunting my head and they are weird indeed!

sample platter of my summer

This summer has been beautiful. Work has been hard. trying to get pregnant has been tiring and interesting. friends have been abundant. the garden and yard have filled up many of my hours with joy. eating good, locally grown food has been delicious. Below is a taste of some of it.


today we took off work with a and r and went to the lake. this is the lake where we swam and floated and ate good food for hours and hours. there are no houses only woods and green herons and blue herons and fish and hawks and trees and cat tails.


t makes beautiful, delicious salads. r and t shared this one with us last week.


a cone flower from our garden.


more flowers from our garden.


delicious beets from t and r's garden and the farmers' market.



me after a long day's work in the yard.


beans and fennel growing in my garden.

You’re the meaning in my life; you’re the inspiration

Chicago easy listening...

Was piped at just the right level into the ear of the receptionist and therefore the ears of all waiting in the drab/way too bright clinic waiting room for me to think how annoying it would be to listen to a lite muzak/lite rock mix all day long and still simultaneously smile and sing along.

Yesterday, was our first visit to the reproductive endocrinologist. It was a sullen adventure. One full of sitting on our asses waiting for k’s name to be called and for yours truly to step in an awkward, pretending I do not quite have tits, stride behind her to the “room” for consultation.

We waited patiently as the bad radio station bleated out tune after tune of sentimental, hetero love songs.

The receptionist lady and the other clinicy people were sweet as jello based pie and as we waited among the slews of straight folks trying to get their babies on, our friend, another lesbian, walked through the door and set my heart at ease, just cause she was there and that made three girls in the room who like to have lovely sex with other girls rather than the boring old cock devotion that was way over-represented in this repro clinic.

It took an hour and 15 minutes to be called back to the room.
Then it took some more minutes for the resident to come into the room with a boy medical student trailing her. The resident said to k, “we are going to ask some questions and go over some stuff with you and then dr. r will come on in and provide the consult. Is that okay with you?’

Apparently, this was the wrong question to ask kk cause she did not answer and I chimed in with a “that’s fine.”

See k was in an enormously bad mood. She still is. She is tired of heterosexism and heterosexist laws and rules and regulations. The questionnaire she filled out for these people was totally void of questions regarding queer people’s sex lives or practices or anything at all about gayness. I wrote a snarky comment on the back of the sheet and I am sure all the doctors and students and residents got a chuckle.

So, k got extra peeved when the U of M poke and prod and learn crew showed up for the repro consult. I was not too concerned; the resident was really quite kind and the boy medical student was entertaining to watch cause he was squirmy and nervous and probably a bit fascinated with the butch/femme duo before him.

They asked questions and listened to k’s heart together. Yes, she had two stethoscopes on her body at once. Then they left and k was testy with me and mad and drained.

Then the doctor came in and he was very nice and smart and k was impressed with him. He told us again about the fresh sperm dilemma imbedded in our MI health code. But he framed it like this: “If you are sexually intimate with the person providing sperm then we can use fresh (washed) sperm to do an IUI, otherwise it is simply illegal for us to do it.” Then he went on and on about how it would be much simpler for all involved if we used a sperm bank with frozen sperm so we would not have to worry about any of this or otherwise we would have to freeze our donor’s sperm for six months and make sure it was a okay for us to use and then do an IUI at his clinic.

Of course, all of this is premature. We do not know what’s up with k’s insides, so that is the next step. K will have her uterus and tubes looked at—they will shoot some saline up her and do an ultra sound; she will get some more blood tests to make sure she has good hormone production and we will get the sperm tested to make sure it is swimming forward.

The doctor said he really does not think it is low progesterone; he looked at the reading from last month and said it is borderline low but not too low…

We like the fresh sperm do it ourselves method best. And really I refuse to get locked up in the big business of reproduction unless we absolutely have to. Our insurance only covers so much and we are far from wealthy people. We will attempt some messing with hormones and cleaning out of tubes etc. if needed. And then…I really do not know what.

government--keep your hands off our bodies and families...

wednesday we tried another iui. once again, the midwife could not get the tube through k's cervix into the uterus.
maybe k has a special fold. hmm...

whatever the case, we head out to the repro doc next week and we are unable to tell him about the twist in k's cervix because it is illegal in MI to do iuis unless you are using frozen sperm or the donor is planning to father the child you are trying to create.

so, the health code in MI is set up to prevent stds--i get the reasoning--but queer girls get the shaft in the process, cause the legislature never thought about the ramifications their governing of other people's bodies might have on queer people. cause really, for the most part, they could give two shits and probably, for the most part, many of them would rather only straight, missionary like married nuclear families exist.

if ever, there is movement into even a more retrograde, ass-backwards state of lawfulness in this MI of mine that i love with too much fervor for reasons that have nothing to do with politics or the economy, k and i will need to pack up our lives and head to the border by the river=canada.

mi keeps coming up with terrible constitutional amendments-1. banning affirmative action 2. banning gay marriage forever and with it banning partnership benefits for gay folks who work for any publicly funded (that means taxpayer impacted) institutions. this all happened in the last four years.

while i am critical of the institution of marriage for multiple reasons (the number one reason, why should people get special treatment just because they love each other and choose to be sexual companions over two people who live together and are single but don't fuck? I mean if there was a campaign to ensure the same kinds of rights and breaks that come with marriage for all people in this country-not just partnered people-i would be more convinced to jump on board), i do want to know that the kid k and i end up creating will not be stripped away from one of us due to the non-existence of laws that might protect our rights to guardianship.

all in all, there are just so many layers of shit to wade through for queer folks (and many other groups of people) because so many lawmakers are either not expert enough at looking at the ramifications of their lawmaking, deliberately make laws that oppress whole groups of people, or make laws without really thinking about how those laws impact their whole constituency (of course this is much more complicated, but this is my blog and i can give the short reasoning if i feel like it).

i guess after hundreds of years of the enactment of draconian and shortsighted laws, we still have not learned our lessons or come up with a better way to live together in society...

but i really think there are too many people hell-bent on otherizing whole groups of people and scrambling for little bits of power here and there. i know i should not get my panties in such a bunch about a simple little clause in the health code that makes it illegal to shoot fresh sperm directly into the uterus, but frankly if government is so worried about the spread of stds shouldn't they create laws that stop strangers from going home together and fucking...oh maybe that is on the horizon--no fucking for straights. shouldn't we station cops at bars and have them hound the boys and girls sniffing each other out for sex? oh, wait gay folks have already been subjected to this kind of monitoring...and still are.

once again, so many laws and codes and rules and pages of bureaucratic reasoning make little sense and harm people more than help. we will keep on doing whatever we need to get knocked up and believe you me no government entity is going to tell me or k what we can or cannot do with our bodies.

bug juice and human juice

this morning i got up and watered the garden. i found some brown metallic bugs mating and eating big jagged holes in my zinnias, so i caught some of the sticky legged critters and squished them and mixed them up in the watering can and drenched the hole riddled plants with the deadness.

then i went pee and washed the sticky bug residue from my hands, only to find the jam jar with last night's sperm spendings soaking with the syringe in the bathroom sink. I thought about bug guts mixing with the little bits of sperm and water and reflected on how lucky i am to have such diverse and cycle-of-life connected fluids all around me.

after much deliberation and debate, we have decided to do it ourselves again this month even though k cannot get in to see the repro doctor until next week.

We were going to skip the next couple of months and wait on the results of all of the testing that i am sure he will order, but then well what the hell? we might as well keep kk's parts use to all that male sticky stuff.

i am not very hopeful that this do it ourselves while kk has low progesterone again will work, but there is something to keeping the patterns of our lives fluid and together. so, this effort is that--an effort in not-giving-up and staying with it and charging along as though a miracle might happen and realizing that waking up every morning and feeling the humid air of summer creep over my skin and the gooey gush of plant eating bugs spilling over my fingers and experiencing the presence of the night sky falling around me every late evening and the bats circling through the dusky sky and the buzz of summer creatures saturating the heavy air--realizing that all of this is miracle enough.

too many days; too much writing; but oh so much fun

i will not moan.
i will not groan.
the days have been beautiful. full of life and sun and friends and family and goodness and things growing.

i've been evaluating and evaluating my life. and soon i will have to start to take some action on what i want to do with the rest of my living when it comes to work.

but in the meantime, this weekend was good in spite of that unending feeling of sadness that seems to have wedged itself in my gut and heart for sometime to come.

so, on friday i rode in the ypsilanti fourth of july parade with a group of twenty bike ypsi folks. we came out in our neverending unusualness--families, avid cyclists, man with a hand-pedaled bicycle, punk rock kids and punk rock elders, and me in my 4th of july pants.



i am not patriotic--far from it--but red white and blue make good striped pants and i rode with my one less car banner taped to my bicycle and others had great messages about stopping dependence on oil for transportation and stopping the war connected to that dependence; it was all beautiful and simultaneously subversive in its own local way!



then we headed to my aunt m and uncle e's for a party with our friends t-motion and mandark and remus. we drank piss water beer and ate yummy food and i got to see my cousin c and her man j and their chitlins. then we all headed to my sister's and hung out and kk, remus, t-motion, and mandark all drank a lot of mojitos and some of them swam and i shot the shit out with my dad and watched huey lewis and the news play music in front of the white house on some pbs fourth of july special. then some of us crashed at my sis's and t-motion and mandark crashed at my parents and listened to my parents tell crazy ass stories about me.

the next day, saturday, we went home. of course.

i mowed the lawn and did yard work.

then we went to kensington metro park with t and r and rode our bikes into island lake state park. we had a delightful picnic--basil, caper pasta; garlicky fava beans; goat cheese, gouda, and munster with crackers; corn on the cob; watermelon; fake oreos; blueberries, and wine. we talked, laughed and rode a good 16 miles through meadows and shadey wooded areas. then i stripped under a towel and put on some old shorts and jumped in a lake and swam and kk joined me and we tuckered ourselves out. it was a calm and good day; a day with people who love me and k for all of who we are and with our flaws included, a day that helped me dig out a little from this ever-creeping sadness.

on sunday, we slept till 10:00--yes 10:00. i woke and went directly to the back yard and weeded and weeded and weeded and weeded. i like to weed. i weed when i am waiting. i weed when i need peace. i love that weeding is always needed. i do love it.

then we went on a good, long sunday bike ride with 12 other folks who came out for our weekly bike ypsi rides.

then we had a spontaneous (kind of) bbq with t and r and tc and j. again, we ate delicious food. vegan pesto pasta, veggie and fake sausage and veggie and shrimp shish kabobs, bbq sauce quorn roll ups (salad and cilantro with grilled quorn naked patties and bbq sauce), black bean dip and tortilla chips, and rhubarb sauce/fresh strawberry drenched angel food cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert. we drank beer, sangria and mojitos (i only drank the beer) and talked and enjoyed dusk.

monday, i did not work. my 5 year old nephew, m, spent the day with me and we had a blast. i picked him up at a storage unit in plymouth (his dad was there for his new job) at 9:30a.m. and he stayed with me until 8:30. a long and lovely day. this was his birthday present (his birthday was in may). we drove to ann arbor and i ate breakfast; he had half a cookie and took the other half over to kk at her work.
we then walked to the comic book store where i proceeded to buy him a demon figurine (i did not know that spawn = satan's fallen. m and his family are believers/christians. but the figurine is super cool). Then we had an almost pee accident, but we ran like olympic sprinters through the streets of ann arbor. and we made it.

then we took kk over to the bike shop to drop off her bicycle so that it gets new brake pads and a tune up. we got m a new helmet (his ma asked me to) and then we ate some sushi (m wanted it).

then we dropped k back at work and micah and i went cheese tasting. the whole point of our day together was centered around this cheese. the plan was (and unfolded as planned) to make macaroni and cheese together and then his mom and dad and brother and sister and kk would all be at my house for dinner! M loves cheese and he picked a lovely, grassy montgomery cheddar and a mild but earthy chantal for the mac and cheese.

we came home and made the cheesy noodle goopiness. M shredded like a mad shredder and he whisked the cheesy sauce with amazing gentleness. then, we took pookah the whippet for a walk. micah discovered the ball launcher, and, after pookah tired, he continued to sling the ball very far and run to boy-fetch it.



we clipped kale from both of my gardens and made it home before a thunderstorm. while it stormed, we sat in our "new" art room (k and i have been rearranging our former male-rental space--we used to rent our back room out and two men at two different times were our only renters--into an art room. we had to smudge it profusely to get the strange ass energy that had landed there out) we drew large veggie mania signs (the name of our dinner service for the evening).

then kk came home all wet from the storm. shortly after her arrival, M's family arrived and we baked the mac and cheese and steamed all of the kale and then we ate and ate.

we listened to music and micah's little sister,a, danced to the banjo picking, foot stomping tunes and micah's big brother,j, listened with an ear intent on figuring out what instrument he wants to dedicate his time to.

kk and ayla

there was more but i am now breathless and ready for bed.