I'm going to make myself sit and contemplate shit (and other delicious substances) via the written word

Thanks for your kind words and good thoughts...Really, it is great to have such dedicated and thoughtful readers out there.

And. I decided not to stop blogging. Mostly, because I had this interaction a few days back that made me think a lot. Then I started reminiscing in my head about how, in the past, I would make myself sit down and write about the thoughts that surfaced after an interaction like the aforementioned. And that is what I am going to do. I'm going to make myself sit and contemplate shit via the written word. It is, after all, how I make sense of the world. It may be infrequent, but you all can live with that, right? And, I can at least make sense of the world around me through writing it all out when I have a few minutes. The tension for me about keeping this blog was that sometimes all I want to do is write for me, but work and life muddy the time I would spend on such an endeavor. So I have to clear the waters and make time for me.

The interaction that made me think was all about being a queer parent. The person I was chatting with ( who happens to be a white, straight man in a heteronormative state-sanctioned marriage) really thinks that after queers win comprehensive rights and discrimination hides its ugly head for always, we will be able to display the dysfunction that is in queer families. He thinks that right now studies--the few out there--demonstrate queers as having more stable families cause people are on ultra good behavior. Also, it would hurt "the movement" (though I still do not quite know what that is) if any dysfunction surfaced in the media.

While I think, for sure, there are plenty of fucked up queer families among us--similar in their messiness to hetero family dysfunction--I tend to think that many queer folks had to contemplate the notion of parenting much more thoroughly than straight people. Same gender loving people have to roll the idea of expanding family around in their heads for a lot longer than the thought of two teenage or young adult heteros who achieve off- spring creation spontaneously in the back seat of a dusty dodge. Because there is so much thought and footwork that has to go in to acquiring a child for queer folks, the children of queer couples/people (cause coupledom is not the way all households are configured; there are single, double, triple, quadruple parenting households, etc) have a leg up in that they are often, at least, wanted.

I work with many people who were unwanted as children. People who came from hetero-normative families and who, in the midst of all of that "normalcy" ended up deeply damaged by the misogyny and violence so wed to straight, heterosexist coupledom and family. Out of the patriarchy so came the disheveled tentacles of oppression.

Please know I am friends with many great straight folks; I have blogged about these friendships profusely here. I am not slamming those folks, or so many other people who are straight and/or participate in the reality of straightness. You know: state sanctioned marriage, the social benefits and ease of movement associated with being involved with a person of the opposite gender (i.e. all the dudes at a meeting with political leaders shooting the shit about the wives and kids; if I speak about my beloved and kid, well then I have to provide clean up services for any backlash, fall out, befuddlement, or bumbling foolishness associated with trying to make me feel okay about being queer).

Any which way, I love my daughter immensely. K and I waited 11 years to have her. Of course, had we had our way we would have had her after being together 8 years, but even 8 years is still a lot of time and contemplation. The suck-ass world of infertility gave us even more time to think about the really huge thing we were doing. You know the commitment for the rest of our lives to this dear child? Come hell or high water, she is ours and we belong to her.

So, ya, I think many queer families are different from many hetero-normative families. And, ya, I'll keep on thinking about all of this and sharing it through writing here. Let me know what you think about queer families, too. Maybe start with a definition: the anatomy of a queer family; the anatomy of your queer family. I get there are nuances and I am totally generalizing above...Okay, I'll shut up my fingertips now and go sleep on the edge of my not-big-enough-queer-family-bed.

maybe it is time to say goodbye

I am thinking of abandoning this blog endeavor. It has been a good run. But, damn, I barely have time to think let alone string sentences together or post funny pictures about our life.

I am thinking on it...

You know all day long at work I write and write and talk to people on the phone and write some more and talk to more people and read letters from people in prison and talk to more people and then read some more and so on and so on.

By the time I get home, the letters that make up whole words look like trucks veering off the freeway directly into my eyes.

While I decide what to do about this blog, here's a picture of Willa sitting on a bench at the Postal Museum in DC.



I love her so much...

inside out

KK and her mama
It’s raw. All of me. My innards are exposed, layers of skin and fat and bone have folded inside out and there on the surface rests all of my organs.

Maybe she cut me open with her arrival? Maybe her brightness—the shiny remnant of stardust lingering on her soft humanness—is razor sharp?

All I do know, is that for the last many months I have been experiencing a kind of vulnerability that I have never known. I feel exposed; I feel heavy; I feel love like I never have before, but it is a thicker love. It is both burdensome and rich.

It weighs on me—literally, my whole body feels heavier. My head might as well be a cannon ball; my chest a freighter; my feet rocks from Lake Superior.

And then those pesky dead ones, they are hovering. Their presences are hanging over us like the thick fog on a cool spring morning that desires to be hot. All of them, our grandmothers, k’s mother, our grandfathers, our uncles. All of them. They are so close.

The bridal’s veil is in full bloom. The lilacs are erupting in sickly sweet aroma and my grandmother’s hands write languid visions of her skin on my eyelids.

KK’s mama is sending messages from the netherworld. Her beautiful smile cascades teeth and gums over our bed in the morning when the three of us wake from deep sleep held together by the certainty of one another’s bodies.

This vulnerability, this exposure, this hovering of the dead. It is all okay. It’s different and hard and beautiful. I think it is some new kind of falling in love with the living we are doing day in and out; the weaving together of our lives in tight strands of illuminated rope. Indeed, I loved my daughter from the moment I knew she was alive inside of k. But, always reservedly—just in case she splashed out of her mother’s womb before term without life, just in case the blood that trickled between k’s legs for the whole first trimester ended up being the beginning of the end.

Since Willa met us on this side of living, away from the dark and marvelous world of k’s womb, I have been falling in love with her day in and day out. And it is this loving of Willa that makes me more susceptible to the dead ones who are pestering me with memories (my lived ones and the ones I have been told) and pounding even louder on the rickety cage of ribs that is stacked in a dull pink white glow below my chin and neck.

In the shower in the morning my tears run with the hot water as I think of k’s mama and how she will never know Willa or see k as a mother. Her life was too short and my heart aches for kk. I think of my gram and I feel her soft, wrinkled hands on my face, my shoulder—I miss her, really miss her.

This loving is powerful stuff. It is sharp. Everyday my heart sinks a little deeper into the air outside my chest; my bones clatter in a kind of agony at the turned-inside-out-cold on nighttime and morning, my insides tremble in their new home, unprotected by epidermis, muscle, and fat. Exposed, opened, unfolded—more alive than I have ever been in this new and persistent loving.

hankering for willa;)

My little, constipated darling is nestled against my chest sleeping hard. She is experiencing her first bout of real constipation and I hurt for her little abdomen. I thought you might be hankering for some willa shots so find a quick photo narrative of the last many weeks. Oh, by the way, the willster is sitting on her own now. Yes, at 5.5 months her little abs are strong and she can hold herself up. She is a bit wobbly, but nonetheless, I am impressed.

For my b-day weekend at the end of April we went on a little trip. This is my sweet one and me all pooped out on a hotel bed. The wrench was a gift from an interwebs' awesome person.


Willa at the Growing Hope Plant Sale! Me all squinty in the back...


The chickens really, really want to make a snack out of will's toes. We have to chase them off when willa is in the yard.


Our first mother's day. I have so many reflections to share on what this all means or does not mean to me, but I won't. Though, I will, soon and very soon, reflect on how heterosexism has become so much more visible and real to me since becoming a parent to this amazing little chunk of star.


Willa's first Bike Ypsi Spring Ride and Festival. She is being held up by our really tall friend in a florescent wbreaker.


Besides working too much, gardening as much as I can, riding my bike as much as I can, and spending quality time with will and k, kk decided that we should dig up the back yard and replace the sewer fittings that come out of the house and about 8 feet out to the old clay pipe. So, I've been supervising and working on that project too. My co-worker and neighbor dug this daddy out in a few hours and then our friend t helped glue all the parts together and fit it up nicely. All of this was guided along by this really great water engineer ypsi guy (for free). We are lucky. So, this has also been taking up my time. I have worked on backfilling the hole. This means throwing heavy dirt/clay back down in a gaping 6 by 8 by 6ish feet deep hole in intervals and stomping the hell out of it.

Pic of us staring down...

tired, sad, and tired

I should be working. But, I am too sad to work. I've been missing in action over here at injection reflections because I have been working too much and trying to be a good parent and good partner. But today it is gray and beautiful and my heart is breaking for so many reasons.

I am tired of the meanness. I am tired of the ruling, white elite.
I am tired of the rich. I am tired of the haves and have nots. I'm tired of violence. I'm tired of humans killing the planet. I'm tired of the disconnection.

I am tired from witnessing the problem of prison:
the abuse within prisons;
the social factors that lead to the use of prison;
the inequities in sentencing;
the cycles of violence that lead to death and harm and insanity in poor communities;
The homophobia and transphobia that lead to the incarceration and then further abuse of queer people once they are incarcerated;
the general public's ignorance of what really happens in prison and the ability of their ignorance to shape policy (tough on crime measures and then restrictive, punitive, retributive practices once people are in prison)
the racism that fuels the expansion of the use of prison...

I am simply tired of fighting.
But, I will keep on keeping on. Only because of the individuals who we are able to help.

I started writing up the case of someone I've been working with for so many years...it hurts to think how long she has been suffering, but then I decided I'd just lay it out this way. Imagine being a nearly fully transitioned M to F and being forced to live in an all male prison. Imagine having serious difficulty getting appropriate health care to deal with a complication with your top surgery--silicone leakage (I'm talking five years of pain and suffering). Imagine the daily harassment from other prisoners and staff alike. Imagine being called mister, sir and he just to turn the knife in those soft parts connected to your gender identity when all your life you simply wanted to be recognized as the girl you are. Imagine living amidst the constant threat of sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Imagine getting a major misconduct ticket for impersonating a female when you are a woman. Imagine the refusal of the prison system to acknowledge the trans/homophobia of the system. *note: I was able to help get her moved to a unit with a less-abusive climate.

But I want more.

I want this woman and other woman and men like her to be able to shape policy directives to include their perspectives on how they will be able to live more safely and wholly while having to live in prison. For years the woman above has been asking to be moved to a different prison and to be able to choose another gender variant identified bunkie at a more easy going, well-run prison than the one she lives at now. When I first met her she was in a level V prison cause she needed a single bunk. Eventually, we were able to get her moved to a lower level single bunk. Then, recently, she was moved to a prison notorious for being called the glad.iator school (a prison for younger--often more violent--prisoners). Why? Why?

Imagine being a prisoner rights activist and some days just feeling utterly hopeless and tired with the almost impenetrable system.

I'm done now.
But just for now.

to be butch with a baby at a mall

I’m sitting here streaming college basketball and loving the delicious sound of swish.
The moon is in super mode; my two loves are relaxing in the living room, and I am living this full life with tired eyes, a heavy, happy heart and a mind that reels madly through the thickness of too much to think about and analyze and then act upon.

In all of this calm and turbulence, I needed to make sure to sit down and write about my day at the mall. I walked as tall as possible through the stares and dirty looks and all together strangeness that my non-conformity to gender norms conjures in the worlds of people so steeped in their own hetero-normalcy and non-fluid/dualistic/binary gender roles that they can barely breathe without making sure to make the people whom they otherize feel their disapproval.

Today (well a week ago now as time slips away due to being overly busy), I walked my daughter around twelve oaks mall in her stroller. K had a facial with her good friend at the salon in Macy’s. And, since Willa is in deny-the-bottle-with-all-of-her-might-mode, we went with her to the mall. I then proceeded to walk with willa in her hot blue stroller all through the mall.

I know I live in a bubble within our state. Ypsi/ann arbor is full up of queers and working class folks (well ypsi is) and genuine difference and good weirdness.

Whereas, Novi (the place where the mall is located) is surrounded by wealth which sometimes takes any racial or cultural differences and coats the masses in sameness. I know this is not a very deep analyses of race, class, gender, etc. But, I just want to get to the point of my day: I felt like a fish out of water, times ten, walking my child through the mall today. Had k been by my side, it might have been better, but she was not.

The main characters: will and me.

The costumes: willa, purple pants, dinosaur onsie, white bambi hoodie, and bald ness. me, gray khaki pants, black t-shirt, red and black flannel, some hot red wing boots, and short hair with small hawkish mullet in back (got barbered last saturday; hair is currently very short on sides; short but thick on top, and the bit of mulletish stuff on neck).

The prop: will’s super fly (but exceedingly yuppie) uppa stroller with carriage mount ( it was the thing we asked money for our shower/gifts).

The setting: scary as hell. malls scare me to begin with, but the parking lot should have been warning enough for me to stay in the car because we had to park a mile away it was so packed. The economy must not be too fucked, since people were out in hordes buying lots of stuff. 600 dollars worth of pool table stuff, 2500 dollar riding mowers, etc...make-up, and fancy clothes (you catch my drift).

The plot: There really was none. I was just planning to blow an hour walking willa through the mall. I did this, but I really did not foresee the climax.

The climax: The stares, dirty looks, and befuddled looks of mostly woman as I walked through the mall with my daughter. And, Ultimately, an escape to the hardware/fitness/outdoor equipment of sears.

I consider myself a pretty subtle person. I am not soft-spoken. Nor am I loud in appearance or demeanor. I wear men’s underwear and try to keep my breasts from standing out. I keep short hair and do not wear a stitch of make-up except lip balm (clear) in order to keep my lips from cracking off my face. I drift. I get loud when injustice surfaces in my sphere, but I always get loud with strategy behind my voice and actions.

However, on this day, I felt like a rhino on the loose amidst florescent lights and too much stuff. I really did get scowls and disapproving stares.

I escaped to sears. We walked in circles looking at tools and weight benches. And, finally, I ventured to the men’s clothing dept. of sears and found some underwear on hardcore sale.

I walked back to the hardware check-out and purchased a precision screw driver set for kk and the pack of briefs for me. And, then Will and I set out to find her mama-ma in order to escape the oppressive climate of commodities and stares galore.

The security that k brings to my butch step is profound. she helps me feel invincible to the judgment of others. She makes me sure-footed and strong. She heals the scowls with some kind of salve that creates gentleness on the eyes. She is a good deal of my strength.

So, we left the chaos of striving for sameness and entered the calm of the chilly sun-filled afternoon. Our queer little family; comfortable and in love with one another.


she is now four months old...

growing

Um, ya. All I have time for right now is cuteness. See below.