VOWS (Unwedding) 2010

I was going through some old writings on my computer and stumbled across my initial vows to my beloved.  I wrote these for our unwedding over three years ago.  I did not read these exact words; I wrote some other ones influenced by the draft here.  But, I thought I would share these now, cause I like them.

Family picture from late 2012!

Vows from February 2010

I do not want to keep you standing in the cold for too long, but I have a story to tell.  It is a story of a love deeper than those dark mountains lurking far from human eyes at the bottom of the ocean.

It is not a mushy, syrupy love (okay maybe sometimes).

It is a love that is hard and sinewy; sometimes it is dirty.  Sometimes it sparkles.  Mostly it is bound in a friendship that will move from this cold night and the cold evenings of our past forward in years, minutes, seconds for as long as Kristen and my lungs pull air. 

I could tell you the story of how we met over ten years ago in a Women in Film class at the state school up the road—where we both received excellent educations.  And the story of how a few short months after that meeting in class, February 11, 2000 became our anniversary. 

But mostly I want to tell you about what we have built together since that night ten years ago when we saw Angela Davis at Wayne State and then spent that night and the night after and the night after and the night after curled in one another’s arms talking and whispering and barely sleeping.  

We have grown a radical love that is fertile and dedicated to bringing more and more life around us.  When I was younger, I never really new or understood that your lifemate, your lover, your partner, could also be your best friend—the person you desire to spend your fun times with, your deep and joyous times with, your down times with, the moments when you feel embarrassed or ashamed or panicked or itchy with.

But that is what my kk is to me.  

I guess I have to go back to that night when I ended up in kristen’s arms for the first time, This physical placement—the fact that we ended up entwined around one another—matters to us and it matters to other queer people making their lives together in the midst of laws that favor some groups of people over others because of who these groups of people choose to have sex with (or a romantic relationship).  

Oh, but that is not what this is about—wait, yes it is kind of.

Anyhow, why that night—February 11, 2000—why did we choose that one night as our anniversary (which it will remain after today)?  That night long ago, we did go hear Angela Davis passionately and persuasively talk about dismantling the prison industrial complex in the USA and the discriminatory practices that lead to the over-incarceration of poor people and people of color in this country, and then we ate dinner with some of you who are here and some of you who are not, and then we were smitten and intrigued and tangled up in all that newness that falling in love brings with it.  That staring for long minutes into the eyes of an almost stranger who you are now discovering intimacy with for the first time. 

From that night on, Kristen’s body and mind became a map to me—a map larger than the great and colorful and over-bearing North American world map hanging on the wall of my 2^nd grade classroom.  The stories bottled up in her mind and heart became landscapes and topographies for me to piece together through the deep voiced tellings of her orange headed self.  Her skin became territory for me to explore through smell, taste, touch; my skin the same to her.

That night 10 years ago, I embarked on a new journey with the most unique and beautiful person —a voyage of devotion and discovery.

For nearly seven years (now it is 10 years), I have devoted my working life to trying to reform the prison system in Michigan and Kristen, for the last 3.5 (now it is 6.5 years) years, has worked to end housing discrimination in the Michigan.  We are committed to working for social justice and to striving toward the greatest good for all people and the earth.  

But, more importantly, we are committed to community—to building and growing a loving and beloved community that includes humans, soil, non-human animals, trees, rivers, fungi, rocks, bees, lakes, skies.  We have put down roots in Ypsilanti that are long and thick and sink into the wet slope of the valley toward this river next to us; this river that we love—the Huron.

As Angela Davis stated, “Radical simply means  ‘grasping things at the root.’”  And Kristen and I have worked on both a theoretical level and literal level to do just this.

I have witnessed my love—this beautiful bird before you all—become, day after day, more loving, more poignantly powerful, more dedicated to growing our own food, more self-sustaining, more community sustaining, more committed to all of this living we are doing together.  

I have seen her grow into her own body and discover her resilience and athleticism.  Before K and I were together, she walked around—hiking here and there, but exercise and sports were not her cup of tea.  And then she began to share in the joy of the invention that is more amazing than the automobile—the bicycle—the two wheel kind.

She is so strong on her bicycle; she has amazing endurance.  In the last one and a half years she has put more than three thousand miles on her Surly long haul trucker and many of those miles we have pedaled side by side.  

This mutual love of community and bicycling lead us to founding with a handful of good people who are here today, Bike Ypsi—a community bicycling and bicycle transportation advocacy group.  

We love this town; we love all of you who are here today.

At this juncture, I want to let you know that it is a cold night in January when I am writing these words—and I have had a couple of beers.  We have just survived a week of being without heat at South Normal; k has been through the 8 year anniversary of her mother’s death; together we went through the first anniversary of me having a miscarriage after very suddenly and unexpectedly becoming pregnant.  So, this writing is impaired—heated with melancholy, sentimentality, and a new boiler.

But it is also fueled by clarity and distinguished by the weathering we have been through together over the last many years.  There are days when I wake up to the soft body next to me totally mesmerized and terrified.  Terrified because I do not know what I would do without this love in my life—both in the physical sense and the emotional sense.  Mesmerized by the sweet skin and courageous soul nestled next to my chest, legs, belly.   

“Some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent.”

Emma Goldman

cold, colder, coldest

It is January. It is past the middle of January. Everything is cold in Michigan. There are a few inches of snow covering the grass, gravel, and all things that grow and then sleep.

We have a 47 day old child living in our 107 (nearly 108) year old house with us. She is mighty and beautiful.

She is sitting with her mama in her mama's mama's rocker nursing. The rocker is resting in the same place where her mama's mama's mama died one and a half years ago.

Did I mention it is cold outside and that I have been reading Aldo Leopold (every winter I read A Sand County Almanac)? It is especially wonderful to start at the beginning of the book when it is still January. I reread January Thaw the other day with deep reverence for the cycles Leopold writes about--the cycles of seasons and living charging in dynamic force all around us all of the time. I marveled, again, at his subtle glorification of simplicity and the sacred readings he captured in the quick, quiet, momentary voyage of a skunk still heady from hibernation.

I suggest giving him a read if you never have and a reread if you have and liked it.

His call to observe our moments alive with the rest of our community (the land community/animal,animal community/animal, human community) is a a good one.

This winter many of my days have bled into streams of light upon my nights and my nights have rode dark waves on my mornings and afternoons. Time is strange in the world of baby human. But still there is the difference in temperature of a day versus a night--the chicken's water demonstrates the patterns of change in concrete (or icy) ways.

Even though we have been mesmerized by sleep deprivation and sleeping differently all together, I think my senses have been heightened to the subtle shifts of temperature throughout a January day, evening, and night. The cold of a crisp 11:00pm as I feed and water the chickens (yet again) before bed pierces a different, more alive, kind of frigid over my cheeks than the wetter cold of morning.

And my senses pay attention to all around me as I walk or ride in a more expansive way than I have felt before. This little animal being that has filled our house with her cries, poop, urine, and vomit, and soft face and hands and thighs--she has added another layer of sensitivity to my existing need to observe and witness and then act.

Leopold articulates:
"The months of the year, from January up to June, are a geometric progression in the abundance of distractions. In January one may follow a skunk track, or search for bands on the chickadees, or see what young pines the deer have browsed, or what muskrat houses the mink have dug, with only an occasional and mild digression into other doings. January observation can be almost as simple and peaceful as snow, and almost continuous as cold. There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why."

She has added one more stripe of peace to my observations. She makes me speculate more than ever. She makes me pay more attention to the cycles of living, surviving, and dying, and re-birthing all around us. And, then she makes me want to work harder to make sure that we build a stronger land ethic in our community. She drives me out to the cold January mornings and nights and causes me to savor the expanse of sky peeking out to us from behind the light pollution in the darkness. She makes me glad to know the seasons, to witness them, to have them etched into my skin. (seriously, riding and footing it regularly in 15-25 degree weather--colder with windchill--is doing some mighty fine skin "damage" characterizing to my face). Of course, I cared about all of this before her, but there are no words to describe the deeper animal she has brought out in me. I like the cold (and yearn for the spring) even more than I did before.

lakes, legs, and love

lake michigan after a day of rain

k and i just returned from a lovely mini-vacay. i went on her "girls weekend" this year, because only two of the "girls" could go on it, and we had to cancel our regular vacation due to k saving up all her vacation days in order to take a 3 month maternity leave. she gets paid leave only in using up her vacay and sick days and then it becomes unpaid.

K's legs my fingers

it was really good to go up north and be near so many of michigan's wonderful lakes and all of the rivers that flow out from them. of course, we have lakes and rivers downstate too, but up north the inland lakes are large and deep and then lake michigan or lake huron are always near-by (or nearer by). we stayed up the hill from crystal lake in a cottage. we could not see the lake cause a huge condo-complex got built sometime in the late 80s/early 90s and now blocks the view, but we were not far from the lake and we could smell it on the air and know it under our feet.

whipping and skipping rocks on lake michigan

whipping and skipping rocks on crystal lake at sunset

there is this thing in the longevity of loving another person like i love k that is so subtle and simultaneously deeply spread, like the roots of a black walnut. as the days go by, our love seems to sink longer into the folds of this planet. And with that love comes this greater understanding of one another. obviously, our rhythms are sometimes different, our views diverge, our moods cross and rough one another up, but, all in all, we get along splendidly and enjoy each other, day after day after day.

On our little vacay, our friend M spotted this big-ass tree and she decided that K was going to get up i t with her semi-big pregnant belly and M was going to do a photo shoot of my kk up in this tree. Now the crook of the tree where M wanted to shoot K was a good 12-15 feet up off the ground. Mhm, you heard me right. My stomach was a little queasy as K climbed the ladder that M and R had set up in the tree. And then she was on this lovely limb with her solid, rock hard sexy legs hanging out from under her skirt. And, my stomach was still a little queasy, cause I am one overly cautious person, but K up in that tree, well, she was (and is) just gorgeous.

M shooting K in tree from top of the car

and another shot of the shoot

Time to come down!

Down she comes; hot legs

quick letter to you

Dear Readers,
I've been really swamped. I've been to Kalamazoo, Lansing, Chicago, and Detroit (numerous times--Detroit) that is in the last 3 weeks.

The US Social Forum is in full swing and we've (as in AFSC-MI) have been participating. Did a workshop on prisoner advocacy on Wed, participated, but only half of it, in the prison justice PMA yesterday. And, today--well today is our big Retur.ning Cit.izens Family Reunion picnic down at the USSF on the Detroit river. We've been organizing it with a bunch of other organizations. It should be beautiful.

With all of this happening, my kk is still with child. She is getting to near half-way through. I cannot believe that soon and very soon we will be parenting a new little life. After the 20 week mark, I will have more detailed updates on what we are planning and doing regarding the preparation for birth.

And I have been gardening like mad.

Yesterday I got home from work around 6:45 and then worked compost and my gardens until 9:00. I cannot even begin to explain the joy that I feel in the physical exhaustion that accompanies laboring in the earth. And for those of you have not figured it out yet, I am really, really into all of this mass compost creation. So much so that I hand picked 3 large bags of clover and other greens from my yard to layer a new active compost pile the other day. Can you imagine having the opposite dilemma of the most common city compost problem which is not enough access to brown material? I have more than enough access to the browns--I need me some greens:)

Well, readers, I am soon to leave for Detroit to hopefully help kick off a super delightful picnic with the people.

Pics later and I do have another little comic to upload, just need to have the 10 minutes to scan it and post.

Be well,
the injector

blue, food, badminton

Yesterday, on a walk with k and my mama in the arb in ann arbor, we saw an indigo bunting and my breath was taken by the brilliant blue of this darling bird. It glisten like a sapphire on a thin green reed at the foot of the hemlock edged woods on the cusp of the prairie.

Seeing this small little life of feather and bones and blue was one of the highlights of this long weekend. I also enjoyed spending the day with k and my ma, and talking a lot and eating good food.

And then today k and I worked the earth long and hard. We put in the rest of the vegetables--my colder weather plants/seeds have been in for a couple of weeks (lettuce, beets, turnips, carrots, sweet peas, kale). Today, in went cayenne, anchos, jalapenos, tomatoes, basil, russian tarragon, beans, acorn squash, cucumbers, cilantro, zinnias, lavender, some more bergamot, mint, beetberries, zuchs, more chamomile, cosmos, marigolds. We prepped a bed for some corn and sunflowers and still need to prep another bed for more corn. We mulched and mowed and tidied and weeded and transplanted and worked our asses off.

When we finished after almost 8 hours of outside work, t and r came over and we ate dinner together; a yummy salad of roasted asparagus and carrots and radishes and spinach and arugala from t and r's garden; mini fake sloppy joes, chick pea feta rice salad; cheddar sun ships; yummy cheese (a goat cheddar and a swiss) and strawberries; and ultra delicious brownies.

Then we played badminton at dusk and had fun laughing and trying to see the nearly invisible birdie. K and I got beat by t and r. It was close, but we went down.

So it was a full and lovely weekend of work and people I love. It feels so good and right to have my hands back in the soil and the sun searing my neck and the wind whipping my energy right from under me. Even in the midst of all of the loss of the last couple of months, things are starting to feel a bit more right--a bit more in order and bit more like me and like us. All in all, this me and us is sans kids. Probably, eternally so... we will see. In the meantime, I will stare at the blue stain of the sweet bird who I was blessed to gaze upon this weekend and revel in all that is growing in the earth outside my door and chuckle at the memories of four of us volleying crazily in barely any light on an almost summer night.

a long-winded narrative of my hard-working, lovely weekend

one work outfit for the weekend

A slush storm whipped around outside today and I am a bit dazed by the brightness of white that has eroded the brightness of green typical of the first week of April in Michigan. How strange, really, that this weekend consisted of lots of hard, physical, fulfilling labor in the sunny outdoors and now the sun has stepped away behind the gray of precipitous clouds.

I took Friday off from work and drove down to my parents to drop off my little rollerskate of a car and pick up my father’s orange, elephant of a truck. I found myself at ikea buying a cd tower and marveling at the unimaginative minds of the Swedes when it comes to envisioning families. The family lot runs adjacent to the side of the enormous maze-like store and the lot consists of about 40 parking spots for families. However, the markers on every space consist of a representation of a hetero-normative family. Vomit.


driving big orange

At first, I was like: oh well that stick figure in something like trousers could be me and that stick figure in something like a skirt could be k, but really we know who they are depicting and it is not a family like mine.

I left ikea for home and made myself the drabbest rice and chickpea dish for lunch. Then I set to cutting open the cracks that are looming in our backroom’s walls in preparation for filling them up with plastery, stiff stuff. See, we are redoing the room so our friend A can move in with us. And this room is kind of in shambles, but it is downstairs away from our bedroom and therefore more private. Before we started in on it, it had a terrible mother-of-pearl 1987 peach tinted wallpaper on two of the walls and it still has an awful linoleum covering the floors.

Two weekends ago we hauled shit out of it and with the shit, came this heavy energy. Really, you all have heard me roar on about how lovely our house is and how good it feels, well for the first time this dreary, overwhelming feeling came falling off the walls into my head and heart and punched my chest like weighty cement. I had to leave the house it was so intense. But then we washed and scrubbed and opened the windows and let out all of the sadness that clung to this rarely lived in space.


the back room (A hard at work)

So, on friday I cut the cracks and filled them with durabond and cut and filled and cut and filled. And then I went to the bar and had a couple of beers with friends (it was P’s birthday) and we took a napkin and measured our foreheads. I have the smallest among the 9 of us who were out.


measuring tm's head

We came home from the bar and I set to filling more cracks.
And then I had to sleep.

On Saturday, I woke early, drank coffee, ate an egg and toast, and picked up T to go fetch some compost. The fellows at the compost yard were confusing, and I drove in circles in the mud and finally ended up with over 2 yards of compost in the bed of the truck. We came back to my yard and shoveled and wheel barreled load upon load throughout my garden beds. Then we headed to the community garden and dumped two loads each into our four beds. Then we went to T’s and hauled more compost to her beds.

Then R brought us back delicious burritos from Zorros. They tasted so good. The burrito was full up with black beans and rice and peas and carrots and guacamole and lettuce and pico sauce. Always, after working hard, thick food tastes so delicious and nourishing and in the company of dear ones it is even better.

After lunch, we set back to shoveling more of the moist, beautiful stuff that helps nurture green rooted things to full life. I widened out T’s front bed with my hefty hips, sturdy weight, and sharp shovel. The finished product looked lovely—A dark rounded mound waiting for R and T’s bright dahlias to be planted and then grown up to grace us with their colorful petals and reminders of life.

We finished.

I went home and talked over our fence with my neighbor about the traveling demon that occupies her apartment. It was the first I heard of the hauntedness of that house and will one day reflect on that more…

While I was out, K, sanded and sanded my patchwork. I came home to the most adorable woman—covered in the fine grit of plaster; bandanas covering face and head; little eyes poking out from beneath large, wiggly goggles.


my beloved--glowing in the dust

Then, A arrived and helped k clean up the gritty mess sanding had left. I ran out for the paint. And then we primed the walls. Though, by this time exhaustion had fallen over my bones and the stank of the primer was leaving me breathless and gaggy. A worked hard and rolled all of the walls.

Then k and I we went to Yotsuba and I ate Udon noodle soup with fried tofu and savored the warm, salty broth. At 8:15 we were still out and about grocery shopping. We stopped over T and R’s to drop off some delicious beer (dogfish head India brown ale is yum, yum) and we ended up staying for a wee visit—a fine end to a long, hard, and beautiful day.

Sunday, I shoveled 6 more wheel barrels of compost and widened my side vegetable bed. In the afternoon, when my work was done, I went to the library and read in the window by the woods all of Mary Oliver’s Red Bird and savored her words and the teachings wrapped up in the observations she captures in fragments of sentences and full sentences on the stirrings of all the living going on around us and without us—all the breathing and decaying and anticipation of more living and the final falling to our ends.

I checked out my books and headed home. At home again, I cut onions and peeled carrots and chopped potatoes and ripped through cabbage and sliced celery and garlic and created a mess of a meal for friends who are new parents. We drove over to drop the food off and stayed for an hour. I held the wee, new baby and thought about children and the raising of them and held a brief longing in my heart that then fell away to its own end.

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...

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...

more life

I'm trying to write for work and I am having some trouble. I wish all of the mosquitoes that have been chewing on my ankles and ass would bite me with a poison called "write till you can't think power powder". However, I doubt this magical serum exists...

I've been feeling pretty empty--not a good kind of empty--but a heavy emptiness. I just cannot make sense of so much that happens around me. Furthermore, I cannot make sense of this desire I have stirring in me to have a kid. I needed convincing to adventure in to this whole thing and now I am quite present in the complicated mess of conception and simultaneously really annoyed at this tickle that keeps telling me that I am supposed to be a mother (or father/a parent).

For those of you who do not know it, I am really good with children. They like me for some reason. K says it is my hair and also cause I pay attention to them; I think these are good explanations.

The other day I was working the perennial garden here at k's dad's place and the little girl next door was just really excited to learn about plants. I fed her some mint and oregano and she just kept saying, "wow, that's so tool. It's so tool that you can eat these green things."

Her little, "that's so tool" made me laugh and well up with tears all at once. And then when I explained the word dry to her, I could barely stop myself from weeping. I picked some lavender and told her that she could dry it and keep it for a long time and still smell the lovely smell and she said, "I don't know what dry means." And then I explained it to her using a fresh piece of grass and a sun-burnt piece of grass and she really understood it and she ran home to show her mom the lavender and I smiled heavy with longing for something more than this daily rising and working and eating and shitting and creating and sleeping and rising and...

Always when I am up here in this beautiful part of Michigan, my heart gets a bit more vulnerable. There is so much life abounding in the woods and in the lakes. Living things unfurl in wild abandon and I am privy enough to stumble upon their aliveness.

Yesterday, I saw shimmery, pink trillium and yellow ladies' slippers as I rode my bike down the lonely roads. The birch trees yielded a pristine whiteness against the overcast, fog laden sky and Lake Michigan was surrounded by thick air--heavy with humidity and sagging softly to touch the great lake.

lake michigan in fog

a lonely, lovely road


This beauty reminds me of the solitude that I love and the yearning still for more life in my own world. Maybe I just need my garden and the woods to retreat to, but then plants do not ask questions. Nor do they exclaim wonder at their surroundings. So, a child--is that the life I really need?

February Injections

a snow kiss on lake huron


We’ve been injecting like mad since Sunday night. KK thinks she only really has one toilet paper wipe of fertile mucus, and she believes that wipe happened on Saturday while we were up in Cheboygan Memorial Hospital.

But we know the surge happened yesterday morning and was still continuing this morning. We injected Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday morning. This may seem like overkill, but we want one of the thousands to stick.

Bio-dad seems to have virile loads every time. He is still averaging 3CCs on a regular basis. This morning was almost 2CCs and that was after a full 3CCs 12 hours earlier.

So, in spite of the pancreatic cancer diagnosis that grandma c received yesterday—yes it is for sure cancer—we came home from up north and tried, tried yet again to get pregnant. We need a little life giving energy amidst the illness happening around us.

Update on Grandma C: she was doing quite well on Sunday morning after a rough Saturday of vomit and nausea. She was able to eat some ice cream and heftier soup for lunch before we left. She will most likely be released from the hospital in the next few days and then she will need to see a cancer doctor to talk about what’s up with treatment/end-of-life decisions…

Update on Northern MI in winter: lots of snow, lots of snowmobiles, lots of frozen water, lots of fishing shanties on bodies of frozen water, and for us this past weekend lots of sun (which was a glorious gift).

standing on snow shoes on lake huron












fishing in winter on burt lake

















snowmobile parked next to our car in hospital parking lot

passing the cold, cold days with warming fun

It has been really cold these past few weeks. Today, is warmer, but the winter is starting to wear on my nerves. Last week we injected multiple times and keeping the sperm warm on the drive from bio-dad’s house to our house was tricky.

It required multiple dives down the shirt into warm cleavage directly after hand-offs. I’ve been wearing lots of layers and my big, thick green coat with the teddy bear fur hood. It’s been so cold I rarely feel like removing my coat. I want to bundle up in warm, warm blankets and sleeping bags and cushiony things and disappear until this freezing, winter subsides.

oh so romantic in my big furry coat

Over the last week, we dosed up a bunch and we think the timing was right on, so maybe, just maybe the 6th time with this donor and 8th try all together will work. The wait is on…

This weekend was fun (but cold). We left work a bit early on Friday and went to workout at our new favorite gym—washtenaw community college’s fitness center. I love it cause I can spin on a spinning bike there for as long as I want, do some weights and then go be all extravagant in the posh locker room—It is equipped with a steam room, a dry sauna, and a whirlpool—those warming devices are the only things making this frigid winter tolerable. I never participate in the spinning classes, cause I am super picky (and snotty) about music, and I detest a lot of the loud, not very good, techno they turn while pump, pump, pumping it up. Plus, too many slippery, sweaty bodies in one room make me nervous. So, I make my own mixes and spin when classes are not happening.

Saturday, we slept in. I got cranky and then got over it and then we had some friends over for an all veg southernesque dinner (greens, soup beans, fried potatoes, cornbread, veggie fried steak and gravy and black tea custard to top it off). We drank a growler of yummy dark beer from the local brewery and talked a lot.

A,you are a master with the food torch

Sunday, we went with two of our friends to a coffee roasting class at roos roast. It was a real fun time and the fellow who roasts the coffee, John Roos, is very, very hilarious (it was like attending a stand up comedy show and learning all about coffee at once). We drank a shit-load of extra-strong, delicious coffee, ate yummy muffins, and some smoky salmon, and got zippity, zippy on too much caffeine.

We all looked on in awe, in the cold of winter, at the homemade contraption that roasts up the best coffee around town

When we got back home from the roasting class, we watched an episode of the wire and then headed to the gym for some more exercise and a quick hot tub soak.

Then the ladies came over for some l word and popcorn and steamed pudding (that shit is delicious and i wish so bad i had a picture to share cause it was beautiful. T, sure knows how to do it up. We poured bourbon on it and yummy whip and powdered sugar and indulged)!

Nothing like friends, food, coffee, sweat, whirlpools, and warm, warm sperms to make the long winter days more tolerable--more doable--more liveable!

finally, some justice

We spent the week injecting kk up with lots of jiz. It was a freezing few days--i mean freezing, freezing cold (wind chills well below zero), and I hope the wee ones made a warm crash, slam-dunk meeting with an egg.

In other more important news. 10 women who were sexually abused in a michigan prison throughout the 1990s (7 of the women still live in prison-many with life sentences) were awarded 15.4 million dollars (amounts varied for each plaintiff) by a jury yesterday.

On Thursday night, I dreamed that the jury came back with verdicts for each of the women that were huge and just and finally demonstrative that the abuse and torture waged on these women was heard and finally something was done about it. Because for years the MI prison system did nothing about the sexual abuse that was rampant at Scott Correctional Facility. These women were held in a sexually hostile environment and subjected to rape, assaults, misogynistic comments, sexual pat downs (that included squeezing of breasts, groping of crotches, rubbing of erections on their bodies).

In my dream the jury came back and announced compensations for the women in amounts higher than suggested by the plaintiffs' council. The people in the courtroom rose to their feet and applauded for a very long time. Everyone wept and justice was served.

That was my dream thursday, after I had sat in the courtroom listening to the plaintiffs' closing arguments and then the state's closing arguments. One of the plaintiffs' lawyers gave a compassionate, impassioned closing that focused on the humanity of the women and the brutal reality that they were forced to live in day by day (torture sanctioned by the state's silence and by the state's ambivalence and absolute tendency to deny that the people in the employment of the state do any wrong).

The state's assistant attorney general used his closing to tear the women apart. He focused on the crimes they are serving time for and called them non-credible because they did not go into vivid details of the crimes when they testified (of course, the women were not on trial for these crimes; they had all been sentenced long ago. But for some reason in this society we cannot let people escape from collective taunting for the worst things we have done--we do not forgive. Unless, you are a person in a position of power then you can commit thousands of atrocities against humanity and never ever be held accountable for your actions). He also focused on the fact that it took many years for most of the women to report the torturous experiences that they were subjected to while held captive by the state. He failed to focus on the fact that the UN, Human Rights Watch, and the Department of Justice had all investigated and reported on the fact that Scott was indeed a sexually hostile facility throughout the 1990s and nothing was being done to stop it.

Anyhow, after his closing (which i had to leave early), I was nervous that if two of those jurors had any bias in their hearts against people in prison, well then...

But then my thursday night dream came true. Not only did the jury find in favor of the women, they asked the judge to read an apology to the women on behalf of the citizens of MI and then the judge let the women talk to the jury.

Of course, the state of MI plans to appeal the verdicts. They plan to waste money and time and once again belittle the women who have already suffered way too much at their hands.

But in the mean time, finally, some justice.
Click here to read article from Detroit Free Press

Click here to read All too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons

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.

she started bleeding

ahh fuck.

k's cycle was super long this time around and she went to a 15 day lunar phase; plus she ovulated super late so her whole cycle was like 38 fucking long-ass days.

Why all the sudden is her shit getting very whack?

She spotted on Sunday and Monday (very tiny amounts of pink) and then nothing yesterday. We thought--maybe just maybe...But then this morning she started her period.

So no prego. And now I can go back to the dull drudge of rolling in my winter blues. I am exceedingly depressed and overworked and stressed.

A michigan winter night--strange and beautiful

We had a big old snow storm here on Sunday. It was lovely. I shoveled for hours and went on a snowshoeing adventure through my neighborhood. That's the best thing that has happened in days.

clearing a path during the storm.



Yesterday, I thought I might crack...

Today, I am leaving behind the work I am supposed to be completing while I am technically on my goddamn vacation. For all of the times I try to lift my heart into places of hope, there are the equivalent times of despair. I guess that is where I am floating now--in this hazy despair.

Don't get me wrong--I love so much about my life. But when I seriously start to think about the work that I do day in and day out and the state of the world on top of it, suffocation surfaces. While I do not want to lean on the creation of another being to relieve me of this not being able to breathe, I do believe concentrating on a wee semi-innocent creature would help mend some of the cracks that my work (often fruitless, or at least I am not fortunate enough to see the fruits of it)leave on the surface of my insides.

That said there is no wee creature implanted this time around...We will keep on keeping on and hopefully something will take someday and help lift my heart up out of the thick haze.

putting the garden to bed

Yesterday was marked by a sweet sadness and the reminder of a deep, coming coldness. I began the work of putting the garden to bed. I chopped down the pineapple sage and rosemary to hang to dry for the season. I tore out the withered bean vines, thai basil plants, Serrano pepper plants, tomato plants, the leftover parsley, and the banana pepper plants. I still have three cabbages to pick out of the eight I planted. And, I still have two more tomato plants to tear out. I left the Zinnias for another week or two cause they are still throwing off yellows and orange-reds that make me think of sunset in summer.

cutting back the basil

I will make another batch of sauerkraut with the remaining cabbages. My first batch turned out pretty damn good. Kk loves it and my friend R ate a whole jar. I like it a lot too, but I’ve had serious difficulty eating sauerkraut since my bout of food-poisoning from a tempeh reuben this summer. Sauerkraut, mustard, and all things pickled are some of my favorite foods, but alas the spoiled thousand island that sent me to the pot shitting and puking has left me with an obstacle to overcome.

I already put our plot at the community garden to bed a few weeks ago. We grew potatoes in our community bed and the yield was small (only about 4 potatoes per plant on a total of 9 plants). We’ve already consumed all of them!

Overall, it was a plentiful season. Our mini-roma tomato plant yielded at least 300 tomatoes. We ate off the thing all summer. The heirlooms were lacking in quantity, but the flavor of the few was worth it. The thai basil provided many a batch of zesty pesto and some yummy, gingery, basil noodle dishes. I have enough rosemary to get us through the whole winter, spring, and summer and still give some away. The green beans thrived, and I managed to incorporate them into all kinds of recipes. I’ve already gone over the cabbage, but I must highlight how awesome it is to grow and tend to cabbage, cut it down with a saw, chop out the core, shred it by hand, beat it down in a jar, add some salt, put a weight on it and then set it in the cupboard to ferment for 6 weeks. The results are amazing.

before you were sauerkraut--freshly picked from the garden

Now the brown, withered skeletons of the plants are cut back and left to decompose in the compost and lawn bags. This cutting down of things once alive marks the end to the warmth of summer.

I love all of the seasons, and autumn and winter bring a zeal for being alive to my body, but the end of the growing season also marks the coming of a coldness that persistently chills the good people of Michigan’s veins. In winter in the mitten state, I can rub my hands together for hours on end and still have frozen fingertips. I savor the moments that my core gets deeply heated on frosty mornings, as I ride my bicycle to work, because once I am at work, I can drink 10 cups of tea and 3 cups of coffee, piss all day long, and still have a chill clinging, like the best velcro, to just below the surface of my skin.


the garden so green and full

So, one more hoorah for the plentiful garden that flourished with green things and goodness and kept our bellies full and our hearts warm. The memory of you will hopefully help in keeping my chilly, winter digits a wee bit warmer this dark, cold season.

the thought of you, pineaple sage, will keep me warm in winter

Ode to Autumn in Michigan

Autumn finally hit Michigan. I love it. On Saturday, we went to a family halloween party and then came home early enough to catch a dose of sperm. I rode over to the BD's house for a generous portion of the live little swimmers(he is no longer new, so now we can refer to him as Bio-dad or baby's donor, but BD does him fine). If I have not mentioned it yet, I will now, the BD consistently ejaculates between 3 and 3.2 CCs. I am amazed at the quantity every time I pull it up in my sweet, orange syringe.

Now back to the love of Autumn...We arrived home from the family party. My kk and the BD exchanged texts regarding drop into jar, ready, set, send the injector on over via bicycle. Except this particular night marked the first super chilly ride over to the BD's, so I had to dress a bit warmer and wear gloves. It was edging down to high 30s.

I was speedy on the way over. I got there and realized that the little swimmers needed to be kept warm due to the glorious arrival of the real fall (chilly nights, cold mornings, warmer afternoons, chilly nights, and on it goes). So, in front of the BD I reached down and up my shirt simultaneously to try and maneuver the former tomato paste jar, transformed into sperm vessel, between my bosoms and up against my chest wall and sports bra. Injector, "Sorry but it is getting colder out." BD, "Yeah, you gotta keep em' warm, now."

Then we chatted about pumpkin guts scattered by terror squirrels, social gathering woes, and a particular horror movie.

I pedaled home with a burst of energy trying to keep my little critters warm in the crevice of motherly love.

KK was waiting, but I made her take pictures of me pulling the potential sugar patch elixir out of my shirt. I sucked them up in my trusty syringe and once again (i've lost count now) let the suckers fly.

I kept you warm when you were cold

To look in great befuddlement upon the liquid gold; warm and sticky

Upon injection the sugary, bleach scented liquid found a constant warmth to combat the chill of Autumn in the cavern of kk's female parts. So is my ode to fall in Michigan.

Bike Ypsi--Cycling and Community

Cyclists gather at Recreation Park Pavilion in Ypsilanti, Michigan

Over the last couple of months a small group of Ypsilanti residents have been meeting regarding bicycle awareness in our sweet city. We came together because the police had announced that they would start enforcing the "NO BICYCLING ON SIDEWALKS RULE" in our two downtown areas. Well, in this town a lot of motorists don't know what a bicycle is, so shout outs like, "get on the sidewalk" are normal.

Since the police announced their enforcement intentions, it seemed like a perfect time to come together to raise awareness about where bicycles are meant to be--the road! By the way, the toughen up on enforcement came about cause drug dealing folks have been engaging in "criminal" behaviors via bicycles.

Our first step in making Ypsi a more bicycle friendly place was to plan a fall ride in order to have a fantastic time in this fair city of ours and to get a solid list of people who are interested in cycling in and around Ypsi. The culmination of this planning took place on Sunday, October 21 at 2:10 in the afternoon.

And the people they listen hard and contemplate it all

10/21 @ 2:10--Bike Ypsi(the ypsilanti bicycling coalition) Bike Ypsi's website--this constitutes people who are interested in all things bicycle related in Ypsilanti--put on our first ride. About 62 people turned out which was more than double what we expected. I cannot begin to tell you how amazed and happy I was as more and more people, of all ages, pulled up to the pavilion on bicycles of all shapes, sizes, designs, and kinds.

We broke into 3 very large groups (probably too large--but next time--there is always a next time) and we rode 17 miles entirely in the City of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township.

Riding along a path by Ford Lake--yes there is a "Lake" in Ypsilanti

This was such a good example of community coming together. A small group of citizens pitching in their time, energy, creativity, and a bit of cash--no sponsors (not this time); simple, old fashion posting of fliers; word of mouth; use of email/myspace/and excellent local bloggers; and one brief article in the ann arbor news and we doubled our expected turn out. Of course, the weather was fucking amazing (super windy, but warm, sunny, blue skies at the end of October in MI). A little group came together and now we have fifty emails and more snail mail/phone contacts...

And we rode. And then we drank beer at the Corner Brewery, and socialized and thought about the next ride, and the next event, and the next time we could all come together as people enjoying one another's company.

At the Corner...

Okay, now I am teary eyed...this is the kind of place where i want to raise a wee sugarpatch into a kindhearted human.

Thanks, people of ypsi; you always come through...

For more reflections see:
Mark Maynard's Blog
Fine Bike Ypsi Organizer Georgina's Blog

Oh, the people...

Pumpkin Thieves Beware

pumpkin thieves beware of the clown killer (this photo was taken the day of our pumpkin hauling adventure)

Monday night kk and I arrived home from nashville (I had to go for work). When we pulled up in the driveway, the porch seemed strange. And then I realized that our pumpkins were missing. They had been snatched right off our porch. I reacted badly--well I over reacted to their missingness. I yelled out loud to all of our neighbors, "if any of you stole my pumpkins you are a fucker."

The thief/thieves stole 3 large pumpkins and a very special banana squash that I brought back from up north. I planned on eating off that banana squash for days.

So, some people, and it had to be at least two folks cause our pumpkins were big, took it upon themselves to steal our pumpkins. I cannot express how peeved this made me (and continues to make me as I re-hash the story). K, T, R and I all went to the farm together on a hot october sunday. We hiked into the fields and stacked a little cart full up of pumpkins. Then we hauled that load back out. R did a lot of work pushing the load along and then I took over. I was dripping with sweat when we got back to the main entrance.


Choosing the best ones

All of this picking and hauling and sweating while spending time with good friends in a field makes me very connected to these pumpkins. I would have preferred for the culprits to take my television set.

Alas, we cannot choose what gets taken from us.

But Pumpkin Thieves Beware...

this godlike mystery

a view from the top of all seasons resort

I realize I’ve been kind of missing in action. Life is too busy, but all in all it is marvelous. Even though I bitch and moan almost every single day about the shit of injustice, inequality, and destruction that I see falling all around, I cannot dismiss the fact that I am able to see the billowing, steel gray clouds of a Michigan Autumn and breathe in the chill air as I sail over the roads on my bicycle.

I am blessed. Amidst the pain and suffering I see all around me, I can still catch ever-cascading glimmers of joy and mystery. Two weekends ago we traveled up north in Michigan to kk’s cabins. Her family owns a “resort” on Paradise Lake in Carp Lake, MI. Her dad and mom bought the place over twenty years ago, and now we are fortunate enough to travel up there every fall for a getaway with many of our dear friends. We also go up for a one-week vacation every summer.

My heart moves to a steady stillness when I am able to sit in the cleaner air of northern Michigan. We are surrounded by such beauty and quiet in the ever-changing landscape of the north. By ever-changing, I mean that we move from thick, forested areas to sandy coasts within minutes. I can hike through forested dunes and end up on the edge of Lake Michigan; I can cycle over paved hills and look out on apple orchards, corn fields, sheep farms, bee hives, wooded plots and still beyond the horizon see the Straits (the place where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet).


a far-away view of the straits--at the top of a hill on bicycle ride

During this year’s Fall Getaway hike, we took a 3-mile trek over a Harbor Springs’ Chapter portion of the enormous North Country trail. We entails a group of 6 friends, k and me, and Pookah—the whippet—and Turner—the standard poodle.



a walk in the woods

The hike was full of fungi. Mushrooms of all varieties busted up out of the loamy earth. Some seemed as if they had just erupted, right before the humans and dogs bounced by; gray sand-dirt was practically trickling of the smooth, strangely colored surfaces—the mushrooms in motion.


mushroom on the rise

It is this privilege of seeing the mysterious unfurling before me that makes me yearn to create life more than ever. What a joy I anticipate in the sharing of all things mysterious with a wee mystery—a child. To be up north in the company of michigan’s lakes and dunes and forests and animals, is to be in the company of that which is bigger than human understanding.

The pieces of something godlike re-surfacing in my heart are deeply connected to the joy I find when sitting, walking, biking, hiking, or swimming through the bounteous land and water that I am fortunate to call home. If there is a god, it roams somewhere within all of this beauty.

Thankful

Thankful for it all

I think skipping a month was good for us. We are entering this new time of K’s fertile time with renewed hearts and a fresh spirit. I am also becoming more patient and thankful.

Thankful for life—for living, breathing, being alive—Thankful for even having the life breath in us to toy with all of this trying to create new life.

This living that we do is so precarious. It all could end tomorrow; it all could slow tomorrow; it all will be so different in the evening no matter what we do to try and stop change. I am thankful for the uncertainty. I am thankful to be able to encounter the day and hold the slippery edges of the minutes that tick away—each moment sailing silently through my fingers like fine slippery figs sliding down my throat vanishing into the pit of my belly and intestines.

Not that I was not thankful before, but the many lives we are touched by bring such news of newness and challenges; heartache and joy, trials and growth. So all of these events of living are becoming so much brighter in my head and palpable in my mouth. As loved ones struggle through harder days and as laughter in the neighborhood drifts carelessly over our heads into our hearts, I suck it all in like the feeling might be my last. And I give thanks to every thing and being that surrounds me for sharing this living.

Now the patience thing, that’s a harder one to embrace, but I am trying. Since uncertainty is what each day whips or tosses at us, then cultivating the patience to deal with these spheres of not knowing should be easy. Not quite. But then again, I wait with the patience of a good monk for my garden to grow. I tend to the soil with calm persistence and dream of rain when it is too dry. So, if only I could come into that same kind of patience over the creation of this kid, I think all would be a bit better.


Thankful for my love