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