crank

I am cranky.

Yes, cranky.

Maybe it’s the flovent (the steroid I am taking for this bronchial shit that has been invading my chest). Maybe, it’s the fact that for five nights straight I barely slept and then for five other nights I slept very poorly. Maybe it’s that many people in my family (including my mother and father) will never really get how saying “oh” (and nothing more) when I state that it is nearing our 6 or 7 or 8-year anniversary is not a nice response. Or, maybe it is that same family’s (including my mother and father) inability to realize that not asking even one time how this trying to conceive process is going is really insensitive and rude and just plain fucking shameful. Cause, maybe just maybe, I know that they would really rather that we did not try to have a kid at all. After all, two women who love and fuck and love some more really should not be raising children together…

Yes, I’m cranky.

Maybe, it’s that I am going to start my period any moment.
Maybe, it’s that I simply want me being gay to be a god-damn back burner issue—not some dramatic addition to the drama of everyday living. I just want to fucking be.

Yes, I am crank.

the heart of kk

The last 10 days have been full up of sickness for me (and kk too, but her illness was relegated to her face). It started last Monday with a killer sore throat and then moved into my bronchial area almost immediately.

From Thursday through Monday, I barely slept due to excessive out-of-control hacking. I was banished to the couch in my own little cozy cave (many pillows and a huge sleeping bag). I watched mindless tv into the wee hours of the night and coughed and coughed and coughed. I was able to catch a couple of hours of sleep in the early morning hours and then I would face the day in a hazy state of mind.

On Tuesday, I finally went to the doctors and I guess I had a cold that caused an asthma flare up. Now, I am on steroids—which I detest taking, but I’m glad they exist and codeine cough syrup that makes me feel shitty.

Anyhow, this time of year always seems to carry with it heavy burdens for our hearts and minds and bodies and souls. Tomorrow is the anniversary of kk’s mama’s passing. It has been 6 years. The time since she faded from this earth has passed so fast and so slow all at once.

Kk’s mom died of breast cancer. She was diagnosed at stage IV and then went on to live graciously and with a fierce appetite for life for 7 whole years.

It is only fitting that kk’s body gets tired and often times sick around this time of year. It is new for me to also join in the physical ramifications of the losses in our family, but this year has proven a strange one of sorts. What better time to reflect on sickness and death and getting through it all than when sickness has been trickling through our bodies reminding us of the importance of health and balance.

We really have been through so much together. I have such deep respect for how k has weathered through being slammed to her knees by the presence of disease and sickness in her family and then rising up through the aftermath of the ravages of cancer. That aftermath is the fading away of loved ones from this planet—this reality.

In 2002 her sweet mother, C, took her last breath and kk and her dad and her brother and her grandmas and her dad’s brother and her mom’s sister and a handful of friends and me, we were there around her bed in kk’s childhood home. We were there, together, that last day when she struggled for air and then was no more.

For two weeks hospice was in the house helping to prepare for those last breaths. KK took off work, and I took off grad school and we stayed there with her family. All through those two weeks, friends came though the house to say good-bye to C.

At first, we would wheel her mom around the block in the cold January air and then it got to be too much for her. Kk would stay by her mom and curl up in bed beside her and talk to her relentlessly. Kk cared for her mother with a fierce, raw heart; a heart not willing to crawl up into itself and suck on its own ache; rather, a heart willing to set aside self and open up completely for the spiritual and physical needs of another human being. I was witness to a miracle of sorts—the miracle of real courage and loving-kindness amidst the suffering of coming loss.

And then at night kk and I would take the stairs to the basement and drink whiskey and search for mindlessness and hold each other close.

Sometimes, we would sing around the bedside. C wanted old classic tunes more than spirituals (Unfortunately, I know more hymns by heart than rock and roll tunes). But, we would belt out music and C would be happy. K’s friends from childhood, middle school, high school and college all stopped in to check on kk and her family. Her friends from out of state flew in to be by her side. Good, thoughtful people—good, good friends of kk’s parents made sure things were held together. One friend stayed all day everyday attending to phone calls and the matters of daily life. Others brought food—and not just sweets and cookies, but healthy food to nourish bodies in times of stress. Others brought laughter and company and solace.

I kept a detailed journal of those weeks. Every night down in the basement I would write the events of the day and reflect on what was happening before our eyes. Kk had asked me to keep the details for her—to be her memory. About a year after her mom’s passing I was on a work retreat, and I had that damn journal with me and then it disappeared. It is the only journal I have ever lost. Sometimes, I think the spirits stole it from me. Always, I know I will still be kk’s memory (if she needs the details) from that time.

And, her keeper of memories from the time five years later when her uncle (her dad’s only brother) also died from yet another kind of cancer also before his sixtieth birthday. Only that time we were not there when he let out his last breath in a hospital in Chicago; we arrived 4 minutes too late. But we stayed with his body for hours. We lingered till he grew cold.

It is my desire to remember to harness the constant teachings connected to living and the dying that is bound to this being alive.

K’s mother loved life with a zeal that was abounding and still is abounding, cause she certainly passed on her love for adventure and beauty and life to her daughter who I am lucky enough to know and love and curl up next to at night—then, wrapped in her arms, I listen to the wild thumping of a kind, selfless, courageous heart—the heart of kk.

the sliver bullet and reality reflection

Thanks for the tips on the orgasm question. Kk did put the silver bullet to good use the other night☺. It always has batteries, but it was just recently replaced, and we had been without one for much of this trying to get with child time. The enormous hatachi wand (the device that replaced the last silver bullet and that always gets a “that was so weird” comment after use) seemed like it might shake the shit out of the sperm and cause catastrophic results, so electronic masturbation had fallen by the wayside and then when the orgasm question resurfaced, well then.

We are diving back into injection mode; silver bullet may be in tow for some of this cycle and may not be; it’s all up to kk and whatever mood she is in.

I really do think the sperm and egg will find synchronicity when they are ready. I’m ready and willing [and learning to be more willing] to be patient for longer. There is no escaping the complexity of this process. But then again, there is no escaping the complexity of life—except learning to be with it and settle our human hearts and minds in reality in the realest ways possible.

Here we are spinning around on this big old brilliant ball of rock and molten and water and earth and vegetation trying to make sense of the various beauteous and monstrous and banal moments that cross our paths. And while frustration may furrow my brow when I learn that our attempts at creating a new creature have failed, I can rest back easy in the reality of having spent amazing and hysterical moments with kk trying to make it stick, and I have been blessed to be touched by the lives of so many kind and gentle-hearted people along this road to conception and in life itself.

the orgasm question

Starting the ball rolling all over again.
Her period has ended; her charting continues; the injections will now begin again.

Someone told us the other day that kk needs to orgasm with each injection of sperm. Is this true? Cause for all the times that I have shot that sweet smelling fluid up her, she has had orgasms about 3 times—give or take.

Part of the problem I have already explained—I have an issue with male fluids. The other problem is time and timing. I mean, for fuck sake, if I have to get her off every injection that means I can never just shoot and run out of the house when the other necessities of life come calling (work/obligations/etc). Furthermore, it is a little tricky to keep sperm warm in a syringe, get my baby all excited, and still have a hand free to make her come.

Please, do not take this as insensitive, or unsentimental, or rude. We do try to be as “spiritual” and loving about this process as possible. But, I am an incredibly practical gal. If the fluid is right and her cervix is right and her temp is right and her ovulation predictor kit is saying sling it and the ferns are forming on the maybe mommy and the days are lining up and her horniness level is right, then we have to trap and shoot. Sometimes, the time is early in the morning; sometimes, this is late at night.

And, of course we have to make sure bd’s life (plus those of his sweet family) is lining up with our lives. When the kind man is already willing and able to swing a jar of jiz by on his way to work, who then has time for kk’s orgasm?

Unless that orgasm is essential to the process of that darn sperm sticking to my kk’s egg, it becomes the last thing to check off on the doing it all right list. Of course, if we have a free night and all the timing is just perfect (which has happened) then things can run a little differently. Romantic lights and kissing and licking and all that.

about a me

I was tagged by starrhill girl; she thought i would not play, so i had to play. Otherwise, i most likely would not have played.

six things about me that you may or may not know and you may or may not care to know:

1.I love sour patch kids and gummy worms. I have an addiction that is insatiable; I have to cut myself off from even buying them cause I suck em down until my belly hurts. I blame the rocket (my friends' fun toy/strange things/candy store) for feeding this addiction.

2.I hate sleeping by myself at night. If kk is out of town I stick a chair up against the door handle so no one can kill me as I sleep. Even when kk is home, I keep an old aluminum baseball bat next to our bed in order to knock the shit out of potential intruders.

3.I love to shovel snow.

4.I come from a glamorous crew of women. My sisters are blonde knockouts and so is my mama. And then there is me…but while I might be exceedingly boy-like and opposed to make-up gracing my face, I’m still into my own kind of glamorous (I’m a clothes snob—not brand names, but outfits must be arranged with a creative zeal that satisfies my eye. It’s my family’s fault that I care about these things, but really I love it).

5.I am a bit of a hypochondriac. I get nervous about illnesses creeping up into me. I take my temperature more than normal people. This too is my family’s fault. My grandfather used to listen to his heart with a stethoscope many times throughout the day—I guess to hear if it was still beating. While I may be paranoid about viruses and bacterias, I do not go to the doctors very often…

6.I wear my heart on my sleeve. Therefore, it is terribly difficult to write these tag thingies cause I tend to be a bit too transparent and perhaps these little quirky things about me are really just a grand redundancy for some folks. Wearing my heart on my sleeve is not so good; people tend to know when I am pissed, distraught, or simply moody even if I am doing everything I can to hide it.

I am now tagging:
1. M--chickendiction cause you know you want it.
2. G--yesterday looks good cause you tagged me a while back (when i was in the middle of the report) and i did not play--so i thought i would play and tag you back so you could see i did play a little.
3. K--wading thru my head cause i want to hear about your quirks!

The rules:

1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!

not this time

it did not take again this time around.

Maybe it is better that it did not happen during this really stressful time of year. It is stressful for many reasons:
1. anniversary of the passing of kk’s mama (in one week it will be 6 years)
2. work (it has been crazy)
3. winter blues
Kk will see an acupuncturist next month.
and I will peer at her cervix with more diligence after she ends her period.

Maybe I should get a magnifying glass.

And we will keep on trying and keep on trying.

In May, my insurance will pay (up to so much) for her to visit a fertility specialist cause we will have been trying for a year…

But my fingers are crossed that something or other might happen before May. If not, well, we will keep on traversing through this interesting terrain.

Spreading the Joy Butter

On Saturday, we went to a 60th birthday surprise party for a dear family friend of kk. We took the long way (non-freeway way) to Livonia to pick up kk’s dad and then we hopped on the freeway for the quick little sprint to Detroit for the party.

On the way to Livonia, the gray winter sky dusted our surroundings with a simple sadness; the depleted horizontal landscape of Michign Avenue struck that same chord of ouch and yuck in my heart that it does every time we drive down it. Things are so built up and at the same time so depressed. There are strange bars and shabby motels where people take up permanent residence. There’s a GM plant and multiple care dealers; Home Depot and Bob Evans; Targets, Targets, Targets, and strip clubs.

As kk drove, I thought up nice things to write in the birthday girl’s card and kept my head down even though the car-sickness that I easily succumb to, when not looking out the window, was creeping into my chest. The birthday girl is indeed a woman who has an infectious joyfulness about her. So, I toyed with words about the joy she shares.

I turned to kk, “how about your joy is contagious; keep spreading the joy butter throughout the year?”

Kk chuckled, “spreading joy butter sounds kinda sexual.”

I said, “ha ha ha it does.”

Kk responded with, “maybe that is what we should call girl goo/juice/orgasm residue—Joy Butter.”

I agreed that girl come/cum should and could and would from now on, in our house, be referred to as Joy Butter. The dismal drive down Michigan Avenue got better when we started talking about the joy butter.

Keep spreading the joy butter ladies; it’s good for the soul.

Finished!

Finally, the report (on the state of health care and mental health care services in Michigan’s prisons from the perspective of advocates, activists, and the people inside the prisons) is finished. Done—dropped it off at the printer yesterday at 4:15. Right after I left it there, I went and treated myself to soy chai and a blueberry muffin at zingerman’s. Then I walked over to kk’s office and climbed the stairs to her attic.

Luckily, I saw her director out of the corner of my eye; before kk’s eyes hit mine. Cause, if I had seen k first, I would have started weeping, and I would not have been able to stop.

The completion of this report is a big deal for many reasons.
1.We have been working on it for over three years.
2.The intensive writing piece of it has been going on for the last nine months. The thing has been edited and re-edited by multiple people and then I’ve waited on some people’s edits and contributions and whole sections and they never sent them. Writing in coalition is like pulling one’s teeth out with a wrench. I have spent countless, sleepless nights pondering this thing and tossing and turning with anxiety over it.
3. My good friend, A, was contracted on this thing to write (she became my good friend through the prison activism work we were both doing, but then she moved on to something else) and now this monster will no longer haunt her days.
4. Hopefully, the contents of the report will lend itself to real changes in policies so that people in prison in MI will benefit and be able to grow healthier in mind and body before coming back to the free-world.

A, R, KK, and I went out to celebrate the completion of this 125 page, 11 point font, single spaced beast last night. Three of us drank yummy martinis (ginger, lime ones—so spicy for winter); we ate delicious food and basked in the glory of being done with it!

a day in the life of a real, live lesbian

waiting for drama






We had some friends over to watch the premiere of the show so many of us love to hate—the l word. As we popped popcorn for the festivities (in our new air popper from r and t—my new favorite toy), I thought how perfect it would be to write about my day, my lesbian day.




new popper!!








Woke up Sunday morning next to my lovely lady. Poached an egg for each of us, made some coffee, and toasted some toast. Consumed the food.

Did some work on this fucking report that we have been working on for way too long (it is about the state of health care and mental health care services in MI’s prisons—bet you want to read it real bad).

Put on my fleece lined pants and my rain pants, a top base-layer and a sweater with my not so waterproof (but water resistant) green jacket, wool hat, thin gloves, and helmet and met up with A for a ride. Rode for a good hour and a half—only about 18 miles, but it was wet and foggy and a bit chilly. I had grease and mud and rode salt all over my body—face included.



my rain pants--i bet you don't get as excited about them as a i do:)





Once we made it back to my house, A tightened my chain cause it had become all slack. I washed my bike and put her to sleep.

Then I made some spicy, squash soup. One butternut; one acorn squash; three cloves of garlic; some onion; some jalapeño; a bit of butter; 4 small potatoes; some rosemary, sage, nutmeg, cayenne; one bottle of arbor brewing company’s dark corner ale; 24 ounces of water; one can 2% condensed milk; salt and pepper; cooked it all down then blended it.

While the soup simmered, I took a long, hot bath in some Epsom salts with tea tree oil, lavender oil, rosemary oil, and eucalyptus oil. Kk joined me at the end.

Then we watched some terribly sentimental queen latifah movie, but damn the queen is fine. I popped the popcorn in the new air popper, and kk dolled it all up with her special sauces—butter, chili pepper, garlic powder, salt, and Parmesan cheese.

And then the ladies spilled into the living room. We had quite a spread of food because of the massive leftovers from New Years Eve. And we ate and ate and drank a little and watched the silliness called the l-word and cracked jokes, and I covered my head repeatedly cause in scenes like the one where shane is getting it on with the girl in the turquoise suit, well I cannot handle that kind of idiocy, so I covered my head.

And now that you’ve read through my blather about my ordinary lesbian day, here’s how it drastically differs from the lame shit depicted on the bewitching, for some unknown reason, l-word.

1.Food-- I make and eat, with a ravenous appetite, my own food. L-word--people nibble on shit made by other people.

2.Work— I do it on the weekdays and the weekends, too. L-word--not a soul has any kind of real job that she goes to on any kind of regular basis.

3.Grease—I get it on my face while riding around on my bicycle. L-word—grease
is the layers of make-up on all of the ladies’ faces even when locked up in some
kind of jail where ladies' hands bust out through the bars as free-world dykes walk down the gallery—that shit don’t happen in real life. No folks from the street allowed to wander haphazardly (eyeing out sexual conquests) through the jail or prison units.

4. Sex--I get all sexual with my lady, for real. L-word--only one or maybe two of the hotties get it on in real life with other ladies.

a party, 2008, the cervix, and some sperm!

What a start to the New Year... Kk and I were real sick all weekend; we had some kind of bug that knocked us on our backs and made our bellies hurt. I slept 26 hours from Friday to Monday and watched ten movies. We were really supposed to be preparing for our annual New Year's Eve Party, but we pretty much got everything in order for the festivities on Monday, the day of.


party, party, party







Quite a few folks piled into our house last night. We had a good spread of food and a sweet bounty of beer, wine and liquor. The evening was warm and cozy. Around 11:00 Est. it started snowing hard--big, beautiful flakes--I'm talking the size of a fifty cent piece. Many of us at the party rang in the New Year on the front porch and in the front yard, swallowing snow flakes and spinning dazedly in the splendor of it.


50 cent piece snow flakes









Who knew the very first day of 2008 would also include the first sperm injection of the new year? Over the last few days, I've been checking kk's cervix. I lube up the speculum and very carefully slide it on up into her. The speculum is a cheap, crooked plastic thing that concerns me every time I use it cause I'm terrified it might rip a chunk of kk's sweetness out as a pull it back into the air. So far, so good...

Anyhow, back to the story of her cervix. The last three times that I checked the little donut it was emitting creamy fluid and lowly positioned (not high and back). On Sunday night I investigated and the same situation was in process. I could tell the fluid was getting a little less creamy white, but not that much.

Then our crazy, hectic New Year's Eve Monday came. After a piss, kk told me she thought she was super slippery and perhaps the egg white fluid was starting to surface. I was like how could it shift that quickly and plus according to your chart you are not even supposed to begin the ovulation phase until Wednesday (the earliest potential date for ovulating). But, I also let on that we should call the bio-dad and ask if he could provide a little something, something. We did not.

Then this morning after a late night (3:30 a.m. bed time). Kk peed on the ovulation predictor stick and a smiley developed. We texted bd and let him know we needed some fluid. He texted back and sprang some for us a bit over 2 hours later. No, it did not take him two hours to get it off; he had family obligations:)

Then kk got all cozied up and I injected the first, fresh sperm pool of 2008 up into my love's hole.

How appropriate that New Year's day should be a day for injecting. Last night, during the party, I was sitting around with two of my straight, boy friends shooting the shit about kk's cervix and a Nova special they had both seen that shows the cervix dipping into a fresh sperm pool. They said it was really cool and I should watch it. Well, today I hope that bd, me, and my kk created a fresh sperm pool for the cervix to bend into and lap up whole heartedly some sperms for procreation.

Happy 2008!