A New Ride

The past couple of months have been void of sperm. We have not injected since July. The distance of the don don and the insane business of our lives have proven to be major obstacles in our attempts to get pregnant. So, here, in public, I give a shout of thanks out to our don don. Thanks for trying with us. Thank you for familiarizing me with sperm—its smell, its texture, its elasticity. Your sperm will always be the first I ever sucked up in an orange syringe and let fly.

But now, we must move on to closer swimmers. Some very gracious people have offered up the male half of the couple’s sperms. And we have found this arrangement to be comfortable and to make sense. Laughing about the process with these folks has made me love the adventure even more. Now, fresh sperm will be just a few blocks away, and I will be able to pick the stuff up via bicycle and ride it home to my sweet girl’s eager cavern.

I cannot stress how happy I am that I can ride my bicycle to pick up the life giving liquid. Riding my bicycle makes me incredibly happy. Every morning I wake up excited to get on my bike and ride to work. Many mornings I meet my dear friend T and we take off for the wild world of Ann Arbor. Riding my bike to work makes me feel like a kid; riding my bike to work with a friend makes me feel like a super kid out on a play date rather than on my way to the stress riddled realities of social injustice that I become submerged in throughout the day. The ride in prepares me for a long day; the ride home helps take my mind to the present moment.



my single gear-redline 9.2.5.

Riding is like that. It turns a mind and body to the presence of air and ground and wind and gravel and concrete and grass and rivers. Riding over roads and paths, consumes the senses with all that surrounds the body. I have to become consumed, because I have to pay attention to every detail happening around me. The wiz, wiz, wiz of too many cars becomes a mantra of refusal to be clipped. The ferocity of the wind can set the pace and make me feel like I am riding in the midst of something miraculous.

Riding in a rainstorm initiates a deep satisfaction in my soul. It is like swimming on land. We are able to delve into the mystery of water while breathing in oxygen. Even the freezing months’ rides deliver a thrill. While it may be difficult to get my ass out of the house on those 20-something degree mornings, once we are on the road the anticipation of warming up by mile 5 speeds up the heart, warms the muscles, and breathes life into our blood.

I am amazed and blessed and thrilled that I can now combine my love of being out in the world on my bicycle, traversing the landscapes and moving through the present moment, with this sugar patch creation adventure.

Again, thank you dear don don.

And now, onto the new ride

don't read if you don't feel like hearing a vent about injustice

Today I am furious. Today I am sad.

The reservations that arise in my heart about having a child are intimately connected to the injustices I witness day after day after day.

Below is the story of a man that wrote to AFSC, the organization where I work, with a request to get him a tent and sleeping bag so he could go live in the desert once he maxed out of prison. I should point out that this stint he has served five years and spent almost every single one of those days in solitary confinement. That amounts to 23 to 24 hour lock down 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The 23 hours gets referred to cause five times a week people in solitary get let out into a dog run for one hour. If a prisoner exhibits “bad” behavior, he/she gets the one-hour out privilege revoked.

Anyhow, this fellow was serving prison time on a non-violent crime for a B & E. He’s been in and out of prison since 1974 all for B & E type crimes (all because he has mental health issues and has been homeless his whole adult life).

Through our good American practice of punishing to the max, we have intentionally contributed to the exacerbation of this man’s disconnection, isolation, and mental anguish. We, and yes it is us and if you don’t feel responsible then you are even more responsible, passively stand by and watch the planet gasp for air around us, the animals of the planet disappear, and the human animals of the planet stumble about in the throngs of unnecessary suffering. That is suffering we create folks, not that suffering inherent to being alive. I mean for fuck sake there is no reason, no matter what, to keep people locked up in 10 by 12 cages with no freedom of movement for years on end. And I do not want to go into how the justice system is predicated on a racist, classist foundation that renders behaviors that deviate from the norm as criminal, but I will say this more than ¾ of the people incarcerated in MI are in there for no good reason (not that there is ever a good reason to lock people up)—and yes I pulled the ¾ figure out of my ass.

So, we keep this man locked up for most of his adult life and then dump him on the street. Except this time we, people at AFSC, have been able to minimally intervene. This minimal intervention amounts to the following:
Correspond with him and ask what he wants out of life
Ask the DOC to transfer him downstate so that we can pick him up from the prison gates upon release
Ask the Psychological services at the DOC to evaluate him so he can get back on the mental health medications he wants to be on (or at least he did want to be on)
Ask the DOC to help him fill out his SSI paperwork so that he can get some assistance from the state upon release
Ask the DOC and him to help us get a copy of his birth certificate so he can re-establish his identity upon release
Ask the Michigan Prisoner Re-entry Initiative in Washtenaw County to try to get him hooked up with services upon his release

What happens with all of this intervention?
Not a goddamn, fucking thing. Oh, except my director spoke with this man’s counselor at the prison today. The counselor was kind enough to pull the man out of his segregation cell and report that the man is doing okay. He needs a haircut; does not smell too bad; and won’t come close to the counselor even thought the counselor told him he could. Counselor stated, “I can tell he’s been in segregation a long time.”

And the other thing—my director will go pick him up at the prison gates on Monday and bring him to where?? Good question. He has no place to go.

So, here it starts. He hits the streets; he might use some illegal substances if that shit makes him feel better; he might just keep to himself. But when no money is coming in, he might end up taking something from the self-righteous citizenry. And then one of us might call the police on him cause some dirty, long-haired black man is snooping through our trash looking for bottles. Or maybe he walks into your unlocked home and steals some of your home appliances made in china and then you call the police. And then he gets picked back up and sent to the jail where they discover his long rap sheet. And then he gets tried on some B & E. And then he goes back to the state prison. And then he gets no psychological help. And then he ends up back in solitary confinement.

And five years from now, maybe I’ll have a little kid on my lap and another letter will arrive at our office asking for a sleeping bag and tent so that this same man can go live in the desert by himself.

Or maybe—if I can muster a bit of hope out of the cavernous mess of gloom I seem to have fallen into—we will have found a bit more compassion for one another and he can go live with some people who will show him what it means to be loved and cared for and safe no matter what.

Gone is the nipple ring

Last night K did the unthinkable--she removed her last nipple ring.

Many years ago, on a sunny day (or maybe it was gray; i was not there. i'm just the teller of the tale, so there may be inaccuracies and falsehoods due to ignorance and misunderstandings) KK decided it would be fun to go to a strip mall piercing place in Cheboygan, MI and get her boobs needled. She did not go alone; she made her way to this decision with the help of her then-girlfriend, A, and her friend, D. As K tells it, the three ladies lined their six boobies up raw, in a row, and a piercer-man let into their tender flesh.

Then at least 10 years ago, K removed the left nipple ring in some Eastern European Country, due to an infection that had erupted which caused immense pain. Her then-girlfriend, A, had to coerce the metal ring out of her sweet pinky, brown nipple to bring relief to my girl's aching tit.

Now, a good 11 years later, my dear one has decided that the metal must go in her right boobie, also.

Of course, we all know why--it may be incredibly harmful for a
wee infant to wrap his/her mouth around a hoop the size of a dime. K is already suffering from premature nerves regarding the scar holes residing in the left nipple; she is under the impression that her breast milk will shoot in twenty different directions because of the former piercings. She holds this bizarre fear even though D, one of the three who lined up for the needle, has told both of us that she breast fed her boy just fine after removing the results of her youthful risky behavior.

But back to me. I was all for the removal of ring number 2. But then the removal went down all strange. See K just got a notion to tug it out; I was not there when it happened. And she came to me and said, "Baby, you'll never guess what I just did?"

And I was like, "What did you just do?"

And then she said it. And then I looked. And then I was sad.

I've only ever witnessed her beautiful boobies with this piece of metal wrapped around her little pucker of a nipple. I've had my reservations about the damn thing cause sometimes it tended to get cheesy stanky--like a belly button that needs washing out. Of course, this only happened when the thing got irritated from certain fabrics rubbing it wrong. But alas, when you go in for a nice booby suck and are forced to come up for air cause the nipple ring needs a heavy dose of Bactine, the ring becomes a nuisance not a joy. It never provided any titillation for me and it over-sensitized her breast which she was not fond of. All in all, it is good that it is gone.

But now I have to get familiar with a nipple-ringless nipple. I think I'll have conquered my sadness by, oh --maybe--yeah--tonight!

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

Surrounded by bodily fluids

We skipped trying this month. We just could not make it to Chicago—not k by herself, not me with k. It just didn’t work. I could not have gone even if we had ended up stumbling into cash and time, cause I got food poisoned on Thursday night, and I was recuperating all weekend.

This food poisoning caused me to puke for the first time since I was 6, save for a drunken spew when I was in the 10th grade. That is how sick I was—my fear of vomiting was enormous until one week ago. I shat almost uncontrollably for 6 hours. And part way through that the puke came. And then the next day my body was like a defeated vessel of lifelessness. I had a fever—all day long—from dehydration (or maybe whatever toxin had waged battled on my intestines and gut). For the rest of the weekend I mostly sat around on our very uncomfortable couch and watched mindless television.

I think some spoiled Russian/thousand island dressing on a veggie Reuben caused the explosion in my body to occur. Ughh…

Anyhow, I’m better now. I sucked on gatorade and vernors, popsicles and jello for a few days and now my belly seems happy.

I hope that overcoming my fear of puking will help when it comes to raising up a kid when ever the sugar patch decides to take. Cause wee ones are like test tubes of germs and stank and viruses. And I need to really be able to clean up a pile of puke or diarrhea, so that k does not get stuck with it all.

When I was 19, I was still living at home with my ma and dad. I got some really nasty virus and passed out in the hall way and shit my pants. My loving mother attended to my mess like it was second nature. I need a gut and heart like the one my mom demonstrated that day. So, I am slowly building it.

As I stroll through this journey with all of these bodily fluids surfacing around me, I am building the kind of stamina that it will take to be there, strong and constant, for another life in all of his/her alien and familiar facets.

A 2 Liter of Semen--and some musings on the injector's inability to properly contribute to the creation of this sugar patch

This month has been a brutal roller coaster of emotion. I guess that is what life is in general, but I've discovered that this whole trying to get with child thing really sends me surfing on a giant wave--a wave that I am trying to ride gracefully, but alas my feet are too shifty and my balance leaves much to be desired.

KK is up in the air about whether or not to go to Chicago this month. We cannot afford for both of us to go--time wise or money wise--, so I will stay home if she does decide to go. All of this means that I will not be the injector if she tries this month. This leaves K terribly sad and it leaves me feeling as powerless as I've been feeling throughout this process.

Plus, our dear friends are moving away and their good-bye party is right when the egg might decide to drop, so K is thinking that maybe the egg should just drop into a sperm-free cavity this time around.

All of this has become too complicated with the don don living so far away. K is exploring freezing techniques--without clinical intervention--and I am wishing hard for a penis and testes so that I can just knock her up all by myself.

When I wake in the morning to the teary eyed gaze of the love of my life leaning over and whispering, "I wish you could just roll on top of me and make me pregnant," I have to wonder about this desire for offspring in conjunction with the inability for our bodies together to create new life. Of course, we have the wonderful muscle push of my hand surrendering someone else's sperm into her special parts, but it is nothing like the jiz really belonging to me.

Not that I am a semen envier; I really could do entirely without the stuff. Which brings me to the most disgusting thing I've pictured in my head in a long time. In the hot August heat of last night, we were shooting the shit about semen, yet again, with some friends. When we stumbled into the scary vision of one of the fellows storing his daily ejaculation in a 2 liter for a week (or maybe more) and giving it to me to inspect. How vile and laughable all at once! I wonder if it rots?

how to make the red soil seed ready?

the injector tending the easy earth...

Once again, the egg and the sperm failed to meet. So, we are not knocked up. The lessons I'm learning in all of this are that I am a pretty damn impatient person and I really want this.

We debated and contemplated and went back and forth with the idea of trying to get pregnant for quite some time, and now that we are in it, I am convinced that it is the next journey we are meant to carve out.

Problem is I need to devote as much patience and steady pace of mind to the process of trying to make the darn sugar patch as I did to the process of finally deciding to set off on the mission.

I guess this mystery of egg falling from tubes and sperm swimming steadfast against all odds seeking to bump into egg is a bigger one than I ever even began to think about. I try to venture into that unknown void of kk's female organs and it becomes one vast red space with lots of fluid swishing about. So then I try to think about it in more familiar terms--a strip of soil about to get all planted up, but it is not that easy.

See when I put seeds in the ground or in some soil up in our planting room, they are mostly going to rise up with some tending. If we water and make sure the sun falls over them, germination is practically a given.

A Zinnia in our garden grown from seed...

Not true with the dark, warm sloshy place of kk's vagina, uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. The mystery of planting the goods that have the potential to bring a wee human into our breathing space is a lot more complicated than the steps involved in bringing to fruition my lush, full garden. While teenagers everywhere--the ones who seem to achieve pregnancy just from sitting on a toilet seat after their boyfriends--might have a different story about the ease of the mystery of human creation becoming reality, the two queer girls involved in this particular tale are now starting to see the mystery of furrowing the female body for the reception of bleachy seed as harder work than tilling a thousand acres for the reception of veggie seeds. While pursuing conception might not be all that much physical work (that mostly involves driving to retrieve the seed and then relying on the work of the don don's hands--or don don's boyfriend's hands--to ejaculate the seed), it is a hell of a lot of emotional work.

Growing beans

Contemplating the mystery of our internal anatomy is exhausting. Not to mention the defeat associated with wading in the aftermath of a letdown--the failure of the seed to take root after I so carefully injected into that soft lush ground. Cause really that's all I can do; plunge the syringe deep inside and let loose. I have no power here. I will just have to let the mystery be and pretend I am a good gardener without any seeds of my own.