My poor dog.  Everytime the last few days I’ve taken her out for a walk or let her out back, she’d had to effectively try to learn to ice skate or swim.  The remaining snow here — which is of course, everywhere, since no one in Seattle owns a shovel — is so hard, and she weighs so little that when she walks on it, she either slides right over, or her little feet fall in an inch or so, leaving her stuck.  Her other option is to try and swim in the huge pools of melting snow which are the other half of the landscape right now.

She also did not get our annual ritual of an early yule morning walk, something we both (well, I can only assume) have enjoyed in the past here.  Ballard is total Goyville, so pretty much everyone else is in their homes celebrating Christmas, which leaves our usually bustling neighborhood beautifully silent and empty.  But it decided to rain here much of yesterday, so all she got was a round of toy-wrestling in the living room followed by the daily ear-cleaning she despises.

I’ve been fairly lazy here the last few days, only working half-days, and spending the rest of my day in the tub, reading, cleaning the closet, writing for myself, and starting to go through some photos.

When I was at my mother’s earlier this month, we sat with a big box of some of my childhood art and schoolwork, some of which is completely hilarious, so I have a bunch of those shots to edit.  I also left home with a handful of photos, mostly from childhood, and some slides (most of what we have from my childhood is on slides, because that’s the age I am).  I say some of which because looking at things like an earnest will written at the age of 12, not long before my first suicide attempt, is not hilarious.  Suffice it to say, things like that are not going to be making it into the archives.

When I was looking at those photos, there was a whole lot of bittersweet that started happening, and then some outright meltdown, some of which has continued since.  Most of what that comes down to is that I actually had a pretty good childhood, despite a lot of tumult (some of which I didn’t really know about until later in my life), and when I see photos of myself as a kid, I’m looking at a kid I really like.  But I’m also looking at a kid whose childhood came to a crashing halt due to a confluence of events — my mother’s second marriage and the nightmare of a man she married, my pre-teen assaults, some other things.  Seeing, for instance, a photo of me at 11 the other day, seeing what a baby I was with my shirt covered in rainbows, barrettes in my hair, I realized I was looking at what some vile man in his 40’s decided was ripe for the picking and it just left me floored and furious.  I cut my hair after that primarily to try and cut him out of it.  So, while in some sense, I love seeing me and aspects of the childhood I cherished — and honestly, thank the powers that be I had, otherwise things that happened later may well have left me a vegetable — in another, I find myself feeling angry at the world-at-large for taking that kid away so fast and so suddenly, and, in some sense, robbing me of enough of her left over.

I’m not going to get too into it, because so much of it feels so private, but my visit with my mother this last time was exceptionally healing for me.  I got the chance to tell her something I have simply needed to for some time.  That was that while there are things from my late childhood and adolescence I just don’t think I can ever forgive, and certainly cannot forget — some of which she was part of or very much enabled — the older I get, the more I understand not just the greater context of her life, but the lives of so many women like her, and can see the bigger picture of what landed her and us there and fed so many of the dynamics at play.  I was able to tell her that the more I understand, the more I accept, the less I blame, and that no matter what, she’s my mother and I love and accept her.

Being able to say that was a huge deal, and also had an unexpected impact on her: it seemed to make her feel safe enough to finally ask — just outright ask — about some of what had happened to me in the last handful of years before I left home at 15.  She was able to be honest enough to say that she didn’t think she could handle hearing all of it — an honesty I really appreciate, particularly since it reminds me that that’s some of why there was so much denial about what was going on with me then.  And we were able to talk about some of it, and she was able to really listen, to hold what I was telling her, to take responsibility for some of the things I have very much needed to.  Mind, I found out some things which were in some sense a relief, and also in some sense had already known or strongly suspected, but which were also tough for me to hear: for instance, finding out that it truly was only me who was the object of my stepfather’s malice made me glad that my mother and sister were not done any real harm.  It also validated how totally alone in everything I felt then, how singled out and victimized. But at the same time… well, it wasn’t a pleasant truth.

That process also invoked her to tell me some things about her life I hadn’t known, particularly in my early childhood, when my mother, at only around 21, wound up the head of a household that included 2-year-old me, my Dad (who stayed at home with me while my mother worked), and my fathers two teenage brothers who survived the accident that killed the rest of his family.  Unbeknownst to me, my mother even had to be the one to identify the bodies — my Dad just couldn’t deal — and this image of my so-freaking-young Mom with too much already on her plate having to literally look at bloody heads in bags just gutted me. (Not to mention that both of us having to deal with bloody heads and dead bodies at a point in both of our young lives was just eerie.)

Again, not going to get into too many details here, especially since a lot of it is about someone’s life that isn’t mine.  But I think this may have been the first visit I have ever had with my mother that left me feeling even remotely like this: it was intensely liberating, very healing for the both of us.  We’ve even made tentative plans to, for the first time ever, try and take a vacation together somewhere in the next two years, something which, before this month, would have been a daunting, rather than pleasant, prospect for me.

* * *

On the home front, Mark is back in Ohio visiting family after getting waylaid in Philly on Christmas Eve.  While I usually enjoy the time to myself when he goes home for the holidays, having him leave this time was a bit sad, because it drew our all-night conversations we have been having on the couch every single night since I got back from Chicago to an end.  He was just saying the other night that he has never felt closer to me than he has in these last couple weeks, and indeed, while I didn’t think we needed a turning point in our relationship, we seem to have landed at one, and it’s so, so good.  I feel like we wound up going to this totally new place that’s really exceeded where we thought we could go, where we thought we would go, which is seriously huge since I already have thought we’ve got something really damn good.

Next week, we both have dates: Mark has one out where he is, and Blue is coming to see me for a couple of days.  In our heart of hearts, we were hoping for a magical harmonic convergence during which we could both be in those things at the very same moment, but alas, it didn’t quite work out that way.

All of this moving into a much more tangible and physical reality is all the things one’d likely expect: exciting, nervewracking, anxious, exhilarating and more with the anxious.  Obviously, it’s a bit like a moment of truth is coming, where we’re going to find out if everything that seems like it feels so right to all of us involved really is.  I keep having these small moments where I second-guess what we are are saying and feeling, how harmonious it all seems to feel so far for everyone, and then I second-guess (or is that third-guess?) my dismissal of those moments, worried it is coming from a selfish place because exactly what I want appears to be something I can have that is also in alignment with everyone else’s wants, even though we all seem to have such different sets of needs.  When I voice this to either, the both of them effectively sigh and suggest I start trusting all of us — and myself — more, which is apt advice.

Having such history with both of the people involved on my part vacillates from being a total comfort to being completely daunting.   But I just got off the phone with Mark (clearly, we both want to continue our couch-conversations, even without a shared couch), and one thing we noted that seems to make this such an unusual scenario — and which I actually think makes it an easier adjustment for all — is that the person who is my domestic partner is also the newer person in all of this.  In other words, he’s already well used to Blue being in my heart and  being a part of who I am: when he walked into my life, that existed before he and I, and he obviously has coexisted with it just fine.  I can’t figure out if I envy Mark that, for now, anyone he’ll see is likely to be very new to him, or if I wish he were in my position on his end.  I do envy him some for having the ability to just ring Blue up and talk together, and I can’t say it wouldn’t be nice to have the same opportunity, but hey, maybe I will at some point.

This is one of those times where I wish I knew a bit less than I do, particularly about sex and love and relationships.  I was sitting last night in a stack of books from the shelves which addressed open relationships, and feeling very much like it was all so 101, and of such very little use to me.  I wanted the AP versions — even though I don’t think we really need them — and they don’t seem to exist.  I sat scrolling through my head with my own history with things like this, save that I don’t really have anything like this in my history.  Anything remotely close has felt like splitting before, or sharing, and it doesn’t feel like that, perhaps because both of these people have been in my heart already: no one is taking up any new real estate here.

I’ve also gotten to the point in my life where I know I am big enough, wide enough, AM enough for this.  Oddly, I think working at the clinic has been part of that: keeping a lot of distance is so typical in anything remotely medical that my being very open to clients, really kind of letting them in has occasionally worried my co-workers.  And yet, the way the clients have been with me, the way they want to disclose so much and have me hold so much while they’re in with me stands counter to that. I’ve heard more than once that I “just can’t” be as open to them as I have when it comes to kind of holding their truths and their feelings and really being in it with them for that brief period of time and possibly deal with it…and yet, I know full well that I certainly can, and that it’s one of my gifts as a person.  It’s not one-sided, either: it doesn’t just benefit others, but it also deeply enriches and expands me, too.

* * *

And I suppose that’s my rather random set of bleats for the day.  A Scarleteen once-user, since-volunteer and someone who feels very much like family to me is moving into the neighborhood next week, and will also be housesitting for me with her kid while I’m staying downtown.  They’re coming over the evening before for some hangout and dinner, and our place is so far from toddler-proofed, it just isn’t funny.

Thankfully, this week of the year is always exceptionally slow at Scarleteen, so it’s one of the few times where I feel able — without guilt or worry — to take some time for myself and work a short shift.  So, I was able to spend some time just talking more to Mark and Blue, and can now go spend some time housecleaning (which needed to happen anyway: bless houseguests for making you have to hop to it), maybe going through some more of those photos, doing some languid yoga, writing a bit more just for myself about everything going on with me, taking another bath and setting up a new computer that needs setting up.

So.

Last week, Mark and I had four solid nights of very deep discussion, centered around opening up our relationship.

We’ve discussed this as a possibility many times before, and when starting our relationship years back both stated that, in time, this is what we would likely want occasionally, even just as a possible option, utilized or not.

One of the big bombs of my visit last week was that I discovered a desire for our relationship to be open so that I could to pursue one with someone I was first with almost 20 years ago.  I found I felt like if I could be sitting in a room with someone who I had very big feelings for, with whom my history is insanely loaded –and with a certain level of permission from my partner to pursue various things if I wanted to — and it could feel totally okay, not something were I felt distance or divides created between Mark and myself…well, it was tough then, to envision a situation for either of us where that would happen.  In other words, I discovered I felt quite safe and secure in the idea.

It’s actually pretty wacky when I think about last week and see what a huge theme, with three different people, was so clearly about resolving or accepting the past and forging relationships anew, and that’s something I really didn’t expect to have happen with any of those folks, even though I’ve been building the groundwork for that with all of them over the last year.  But this is just about one of those relationships, and how that one now looks to become part of the one I am in with Mark.

Up until recently, it’s felt most right to have things be closed for Mark and I.  Our first year, we were so fixated on one another that there was really no point: we were so very single-minded and our NRE was so gangbusters.  The next yearish was all the adjusting one makes when cohabitating: that was really the toughest year for us, and frankly, the year that Mark wanted to open it up most, but which was pretty obvious would have likely spelled serious disaster for us as a couple.  This last year and change, as we’re nearing our fourth year together, seems to have mostly been about us just really settling into what and who we are.

We’ve had some ups and downs, we’ve had occasional conflicts to work through, but for the most part, we’ve gotten to the point where we know we’re solid; we know we’re in this for the long haul, and also feel like we both really know who we are as a couple.  In short, we have been at the point for a while now where know we have a very real and enduring partnership.

This is not the first time I have been in a relationship that was open (nor dated those who are in open relationships themselves).  However, this is the first time I’ve done this while in a relationship that a) I have been in that has been so long-going  –actually, that’s not true, but in the other relationship it was a don’t-ask-don’t-tell thing which was very different than this — b) we are not opening because the relationship seems to be stuck, or we want to shop around for better relationships to replace it with, or c) when it really was not about what only one person wanted.  In other words, it feels like this is the first time I have considered this where it all felt very right to me.

On my end, a good deal of this has come as a bit of a surprise, in oh-so many ways.  For starters, I think both of our expectations from the get-go when it comes to opening things up at some point were that, for both of us, the desire to do so would be largely driven by sexual desires.  I think we also both expected that any other relationships would be very casual, on both of our parts.  I think it’s fair to also say that there was an underlying expectation that if and when I took any other partner, that person would most likely be female. None of these things are the case on my end (and yes, I suppose this may well be the death knell when it comes to my dyke card, but I have to tell you, I am not giving it up without a big fight, a pair of Indigo Girls tickets and a signed copy of Rubyfruit Jungle.  Just so you know.)

In hindsight, all of those expectations seem a bit silly to me, especially in terms of who I am, who I have been, and in terms of what is going on now.  And okay, because if I know nothing else about me, I know that consciously or unconsciously, I continually revolt against expectations: I should know this by now about me.   Everyone else seems to, after all.

Blue, the other person in this, in half-jest, has expressed a feeling of having gotten the golden ticket.  But that is really apt, here, because at this time, I just can’t imagine — for me — anything BUT this feeling like the right thing.  In opening our relationship, Mark and I have not, for instance, made an agreement in which I may only be open to this specific other relationship.  What he wants, for himself, is the ability to date a bit again, to have some casual dating or sexual experiences, and that is a door which could also be open to me should I want it, but I just am not feeling that at all.  In other words, I don’t see myself utilizing the opportunity to seek anything else out in the near future, if at all, which in some ways perhaps seems odd — walking into something that is about opening things up which is by its nature exclusive  — but for the most part, makes perfect sense in the context of everything.

Even the timing seems pretty outrageous: in talking to Mark on the phone from Chicago and stating that the idea of opening up the relationship for this felt resoundingly and surprisingly right, he basically leapt right in, and during our talks, it’s been made clear that he is very thankful I brought this to the table and did so at this time, because he has been feeling a strong want to go ahead and open things up himself.  It’s clearly been quite the harmonic convergence, all around.

Before I say more, a few caveats, for today and henceforth as I will talk/write about this:

1.  I deeply dislike  — and always have — terminology about primaries/secondaries, and thankfully, the three of us are in agreement on this.   My experience in my life and my heart I that I just don’t tend to feel those kinds of hierarchies with people, which may explain why I have around five best friends and a very freeform idea about what family is.  As with anything else, hierarchies harsh my love buzz, not just my sex life or entire social systems across the globe.  However, we also currently have yet to figure out alternate terminology amongst the three of us, so you’ll have to make do without terms, and perhaps just accept feeling confused now and then, until further notice.

2. I feel ferociously protective about Mark as well as Blue.  I anticipate that, as is always the case in matters of the heart, there will be times when things are challenging or difficult for any of us.  If I’m going to be public about this, though, it’s really important to me not to only present a sunny side, and to be able to write about more than just the good stuff.  One of my fears around that — and yes, I’m being very  Mama Bear at the moment — is that because anyone reading me is reading me, and likely feels most inclined to be on my “side,” that it might be easy if things get tough and I talk about it to demonize one of them.  And I really, really don’t want that.  If someone is going to be the bad guy at some point, I’d prefer it were me by default.

3. I don’t think I really have to say it, but I want it to be clear that I love Mark very much, and vice-versa.  We are deeply committed to being in a partnership together and feel that we want to do that for quite some time.  I’d say it is that depth of feeling and commitment which, so far, has made both of us agreeing to the other pursuing what they want to pretty relatively easy.  I know that (just because we’re so, so cool) there are plenty of people who feel invested, in their way, in our relationship, which is why I want to make an assurance that we’re okay.  This isn’t something we’re doing to try and fix a problem, or as some kind of last-ditch effort to save an ailing relationship.  If anything, a lot of what this feels like is the two of us understanding one another very deeply, and wanting very much for both of us to have our needs met, to live lives that feel true to us; feeling secure enough in who we are to each other that — so far — it is relatively easy to accept the different things we both want to explore at this point outside one another.  No matter how this pans out, I’d say that that desire and expressed understanding has been huge for us and is going to be really positive.

4.  In alignment with what I mentioned in the last entry (which was about far more than just this, but also about this), I’m feeling guarded when it comes to everyone’s privacy.  This is one of those times where I so wish I were a bit less visible or easily identifiable, but at the same time, I’m going on ten years of this journal, ten years of doing the best I can to be honest and open, and clearly both I and many people who read me have felt benefitted by that.  I’ve no intention of stopping it any time soon, nor any of pretending to live a different life than I do.  But again, there’s a balance to be struck here, and a mindfulness I need to find, keep and hone when it comes to what’s going to be safest and feel most comfortable for everyone, and also be mindful of the fact that this is a place for my stories, my disclosures, not for me to disclose anyone else’s.  I’ve made clear, in fact, that with everyone involved, I feel it’s best for the three of us to read anything I write about this first before I publish anything for the rest of the world to see.

5.  Publicly acknowledging this makes it feel much more actual, which is good yet also exceptionally nervewracking.

Okay, back to where I left off, and do forgive my being a bit scattered.  There is so much in all of this, and it’s very difficult to sum up very concretely.  I’ve had to accept, trying to write this for a couple of days, that it’s hardly going to be my best work ever, and nothing remotely resembling a work of art.

These talks alone have been amazing: inspiring, enriching, revelatory in places.

We both feel like they have solidified our relationship, and I’d particularly say the best-friendship aspect of our relationship. It’s been a bit like going to temple every night together, really trying to dig deep, both being as honest as possible about what we want, about needs we find the other just can’t or doesn’t meet.  The marathon-like nature of them has made it difficult to be anything but very candid.

We’ve been talking about places, spaces in ourselves that make us feel insecure or small or like a lousy partner.  We’ve been talking about fears and joys.  We’ve discovered that the very different things each of us wants feel just fine to the other, but that if the shoes were on the other foot, and either of us wanted what the other does, it would very likely feel entirely different, and rub very strongly against our insecurities. (This, by the way, creates a rather interesting dynamic, because it means that we both have a hard time understanding how the other is really this okay with things, because we each feel like we would not be were the roles/wants reversed.  We trust one another’s words, so we accept we each mean what we say and do feel okay about it, but it does involve a certain suspension of disbelief.)

As I have been having those talks with Mark, I have been having other talks and exchanges with Blue.

We’ve been doing a lot of resolution and rebuilding for close to a year now, but spending time together when I was back home took things to a whole new level, as has bringing to him what Mark and I have been creating, discovering and discussing.  Then I bring his stuff back here, and it just keeps moving like that. The two of them had a brief but very honest phone conversation by phone, which I was listening to, the evening Blue and I spent face-time (after an 12-year-lapse, which was completely surreal) together in Chicago which brought me to tears, in part because on top of everything else, I think that both of them could well have some pretty big things to give the other that have little to nothing to do with me at all.

The fact that we have also had to create rules and guidelines for two very different situations has also felt like a good challenge.  Some of our limits, boundaries, guidelines overlap, but the application of them is likely to be very different.  Blue is a very known entity to me, as is our dynamic, some of the ways I am with him.  I can verbalize what I feel and have felt for him, with him, what we are like together in core ways. With what Mark is looking for, though, the “others” are a complete and total wild card, for both of us. That isn’t to say I have any notion I can perfectly predict what things will be like for Blue and I — for several reasons, I very much cannot — but it is a whole lot more familiar and known than the total abstraction of absolute strangers and relationships Mark has never had before.

One facet of this that’s been fairly huge for me is doing all of these talks, all of this negotiating knowing that it’s entirely possible either of us may not wind up getting what we want from anyone else involved.  In other words, I may extend possibilities to the other person involved in my case and he may have to or want to decline, in whole or in part.  Mark may seek out what he wants to seek out and not get takers.  In other words, a pretty prototypical open relationship issue where it may well be that any one member of a couple does get what they want, while the other does not.

But in my case, when it comes to both of them, being able to make that extension — the offer of myself, ultimately, the offer of all of us taking this journey, the offer to Mark to pursue what he wants to — without any promise of a return has felt like a bit of a gift on my part, one not so easy for me to give in some ways, but important for me to give, to both of them, and also for myself.  I feel like having to have some lack of attachment to a wanted result on my part, a lack of attachment to having what I offer be accepted, is an important personal growth issue for me as well as a gift they both need from me in different ways.  Being public about it in the way I can — especially knowing that in some way, it’s like being public about a very early pregnancy, which may or may not continue, and if it doesn’t, you have to deal with everyone’s reactions — also feels like a bit of an extension of that gift.

I’ve also been geeking out on some of the psychology of the very different things Mark and I want in other relationships, because the symbolism in all of it fascinates me.  The big observation we were talking about last night was that, when you boil it all down to its lowest common denominator, Mark is seeking out a dynamic and experiences that are about what is and feels new and unexplored, whereas what I am craving is — both in terms of my personal history and in terms of the energy of the thing — something that feels very ancient, familiar and historical. He wants to connect and invent anew, I want to reconnect, reinvent.

(I also think in some ways we are each seeking out things that have a good deal to do with the way the two of us work creatively, with the things that inspire us in our respective arts.  Also wacky.)

This is all a bit intense and a lot, I know.  So, let’s take a breath, then a brief break.  Let’s maybe enjoy that break with Ernie and Bert, whaddya say?

That was lovely.  As I was saying….

For me, this is so much about love, rather than sex.  Kinship is a good word to throw in there, as are echoing, twinning, rebirthing.  That is not to deny there is a sexual element, and some of our negotiating all of this is around sex, and not just for whatever Mark chooses to pursue.  I would very much like to be sexually engaged with Blue on occasion, but it’s a complex desire, and not something that all of this hinges on: if Mark didn’t feel comfortable with any kind of sex as a possibility or option, the world would not end, nor would Blue and I be unable to find other ways to connect in the same or a similar way.

Oy vey, some of this is so bizarre.  I can sit and look back at some (very painful, for me) poetry published here from the span of a couple years after the last time he and I tried to connect again, years after our breakup, and I was the one who was cast away that time. But at the same time, Blue is never someone I have really talked about publicly — heck, even privately  — who I am quite sure I’ve never directly written about here in any manner until this year.  So, from my point of view, I have talked about this before, but only because I can find this and him in all the metaphors, intimations and allusions.

In some ways, it’s especially strange to think about writing about any of this here because in so many ways, I hid a lot when I first started publishing online, and when I started this journal in ‘99, was just coming out of one of the most painful and self-destructive periods of my life.  That was in great part because of the aftermath for me of that last meeting, and in also then knowing Blue’s similar aftermath from the time before when I’d done the discarding.  Seeing him in so much of my work, yet unnamed, is a lot like seeing a ghost, and having known I was the only one who could have seen it.  Even when I felt heartbreak over other things in the late nineties, it was all so bloody tethered in that heartbreak, and from my perspective, humiliatingly so.  Even in some things that were entirely positive, and in many ways so good for me, there is a thread in all of them that was so about this.  And in so many of the things and relationships I had for years afterwards, it’s so damn obvious how much my fuck-ups in those were so about my fuck-ups with this.  Again, I know so much of that lack of recognition, awareness, acceptance was something I just stuffed away because it hurt too damn much to face it, and made me feel like too much of a fool.

For instance, I had a really initially wonderful but ultimately bone-crushing affair (I call it an affair because it’s the only description that seems to fit, and because that person was, without my consenting to such, having an extramarital affair with me when I had been told by him, falsely, that he was divorced) in ‘98 which I was so too-open to, the kind of open that kept me from seeing that the person I was with was lying to me, and until it landed squarely in my lap I didn’t even see it coming, though in hindsight it was so freaking obvious.  That hurt all the more because I’d projected Blue right unto that person very unknowingly, and only became aware of that once I got betrayed.

I ran into two other relationships in my life, both pretty clearly in some ways reactions to both times, trying to create or find something that did not shake me up so much, that felt more benign, safer, quieter: more normal, one supposes.  I didn’t really realize that’s what I was doing at the time, and it’s another one of those things that you hate to acknowledge and say aloud just because it both feels so foolish and also seems to make so little of those other people and those other relationships.

Oddly enough, when I look at  the whole context of all of this, it can seem like the way I was able to feel about Mark and take risks with him may well have been because I finally had become unafraid enough of all that to let myself get really excited, to really connect with someone, to stop kind of seeing relationships or relationship dynamics as either being like Blue and I or the opposite (an escape from?) of Blue and I.  This is one of the many ways that I’m not even sure Blue and myself could be having any kind of real relationship at this point without Mark: one of the ways that everything feels so right, because it all feels so interconnected and intertwined.

One of the other interesting things is how little I even talked about him, and that was all about shame, more than anything else.  Shame of my own vulnerability, shame about the fact that I hurt Blue very badly the first time around with my own carelessness and lack of awareness about some things that were going on with me, including my fear in having someone be able to get so close, particularly during some things that left me feeling massively vulnerable and wanting to retreat into myself and become invisible.  I also was just in a place in my life where, flatly, I just don’t think I believed that someone could have felt that strongly about me, and didn’t really take his love seriously in some respect because of that.

The only person I have ever really talked about that with was Mark: in fact, one of our best dates — by mutual agreement –  in the first year we were dating was the two of us sitting in the hot tub behind his old place in Renton and my telling him all of this because things felt serious enough that I wanted him to know about parts of me and my life of which I was not at all proud.  It was so tremendous for me to be able to talk about it with someone, and expose them to parts of me of which I was deeply ashamed and felt terrible about, while at the same time, giving history that also let him into one of the places my heart goes to and tends to be very delicate.  So, it’s actually fairly apt to say that Blue was one of the ways Mark and I first deeply connected.

I could obviously talk about this for pages upon pages, but it’s time for me to close this for today.  Before I do, one last thing I want to riff on is just how profoundly loved and understood I have felt over these last two weeks.

In talking about all of this, Mark said something that just made me feel so good, both because I felt like it showed how much he really got how I tend to intrinsically feel about relationships and people’s histories, and because it let me know how secure he is in my love for him without having to diminish other love I feel.  What he said was that Blue was in my heart when he met me, Blue has been in my heart all through our relationship, and Blue is going to be living in my heart no matter what.  All of which is true, especially in the last year since I’ve worked through the “I cast you out!” stuff I managed (if you can call it that) those feelings with for so long.  So much of my history is so big and so challenging, that when someone I love not only accepts it, but voices a profound respect for it, and an understanding of how it is such an integral part of the whole of who I am, it’s landmark for me. One of the feelings I so often struggle with (and I’d say is oddly some of what Blue has always struggled with too, save that it isn’t odd because we’re such twins in so many ways) is a fear and feeling of just being too freaking much for people, particularly the people closest to me who know me best, who are around me the most.  I have spent a lot of time in my life feeling like anyone who picks up the bag that it me, no matter how strong, able or willing is at some point going to topple over and hurt themselves from the sheer weight of my stuff.

…and that is not what has been happening lately.  In fact, it’s been more than even just the opposite, which is particularly amazing because reconnecting with Blue has been bringing up a lot for me over the last months.  I have been hearing from Mark, from Blue, even from my mother at long last, that I am not too heavy, and that it is also recognized, understood, felt, that I need, very much, not just those who can help carry my weight, but who can appreciate it, honor it, even revel in it and be able to go with me — or give me permission to go without them — to some very deep places, unknown places, even scary places.

I obviously have no way of knowing how all of this is going to play out, but what I have been feeling is a seismic shift in my heart, in my ability to open it more, in my understanding and acceptance of myself, in what I want to be able to give the people I care for.  I have grown bigger of late, and it makes me feel just as mighty as I feel vulnerable.

I feel like things have come full circle in a way that just absolutely blows my freaking mind, and I feel so incredibly grateful for how much that is being honored and made room for.

I’m back home.

I brought back a nasty cold, several books, a bunch of slides and a massively expanded heart which has also been healed and nurtured in some very unexpected ways by more than one person, and by people who are, who have been, all some of the most important people in my life.  Who remain so still, and all of whom I now can see will become ever more important.

This was one of those journeys which, alas, while I’d love to — and in so many ways need to — write about everything that happened with it, I can only do so in solitude.

Really, times like this are a painful irony of having writing be your art (in my case, one of your arts, but all the same).  So often, the experiences which most inspire you, which you so badly want to express in words and share with others are exactly those which you cannot share without breaking trust and without putting a kibbosh on continuing.  I can be more vague or nonspecific with visual art or with music, particularly given the way that I write and how literal and personal a writer I am.  Were I to write about the last week, I know I would be unable to do so without exposing parts of people they took a risk to make vulnerable to me, that my attempts to honor what they shared with me, gave to me, what I gave to them, would have the opposite effect.  Rather than expressing a reverence for the intimacy I was given, I’d wind up betraying it.

That given, what I can say is that I had life-changing, consciousness-changing, heart-changing experiences in this last week, at a level I was in no way expecting. I came home with things, feelings, communions which I know will change both the course of my life, my closest relationships and the way I experience myself from here on out in several ways: it is both terrifying and comforting all at once. Coming back home, far more than the contents of my suitcase was increased: I feel amplified, I feel at peace, I feel inspired, I feel connected in places and with people where I have wanted that connection so much but had barriers we could not seem to be rid of which now appear to be gone.  Having that happen with three different, massively important people — and two more additional people, myself and then Mark — is a gift that, even if I felt able to put it into words, I’m not sure words could even begin to express.

Several weeks ago, on the way home from the movies, Mark, Heath and I drove by a shop with this hat in the window, which caused a great squealingy ruckus on my part.

A couple weeks later, Mark surprised me with it as a gift.  Much leaping followed.

I have named it Gerald and taken him in as a permanent guest.

Since that time, Mark has made what will go down in history as one of my favorite Mark-quotes to date.

“I want to snuggle up to a woman who wants to jump in puddles with a monster on her head.”

And with that, Gerald and I are heading home to Chicago together.  See y’all next week.

For the most part, I usually do one of two things on Thanksfornothing.

I either a) wind up cooking a meal for people who do celebrate the holiday but who are, for any number of reasons, sans a place to go and sad about it , for I cannot stand to see people I like both sad and hungry, or b) get to spend the whole day by myself, enjoying the relative quiet that happens when a great many people are very busy doing something that has nothing at all to do with sex.

I like the latter best, and was very much looking forward to having a quiet day this year.

I did a bit of work that morning, and had my living room floor spread with OB/GYN texts for some extended research I was doing so we have some better material on yeast infections.  It was a bit chilly, so I started a fire.  At a certain point, it started to die down a little, so I opened a pack of wood from the front porch.  It was pretty moldy, but I didn’t think anything of it, save that it may well not catch.

However, within just a couple of minutes it did catch. Well.  A bit too well.  As I stood in front of the wood stove, I noticed that, in fact, what had minutes before been a slacker of a fire seemed to have become quite the overachiever.  The flames were going a bit higher in the back of the stove than they ever had, and then I heard a strange sound, something which sounded a bit like some kind of something had fallen in the exhaust pipe.

Then the flames got big.  Very big.  I went from wondering if maybe this wasn’t a little weird, wasn’t a bit larger of a fire than was such a good idea to knowing, for certain, things were very much not okay.  The exhaust pipe started to glow red, and little sparks could be seen at some points.  Then the fire in the stove started licking out of the stove altogether.  Shortly thereafter, the iron grate that sits under the exhaust pipe fell into the fire, sending out another whoosh of flames.  My dog — smart little thing that she is — ran out of the room and vanished, clearly considering it was every pug for herself.

My first thought was to grab the ceramic garden gnome on the stove — Save the gnome! – which had been sitting there since Mark got it for me, as I had not yet decided where it should go in the garden. Then I pulled the top log off the pile: that didn’t seem to help.  Then I began running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room hurling pitchers of water into the stove, since (something I have voiced concern with for some time) we are sans fire extinguisher.

In the midest of all this, there was a knock on my door, and I ran to it, threw it open, and probably scared the bejeezus out of the neighbor as I stood, breathless in blue zebra pajamas, face half full of soot with a pitcher in my shaking hand. He casually — as if I were not in the midst of fighting for my life — asked if everything was okay, as their apartment next door was a bit smoky from our chimney.  As, “I am in the middle of trying to keep the house from burning down right now, lovely to see you, but could you please come back later?” did not seem the right thing to say, and as I am terrible with other people in the midst of a crisis, and my brain was a bit addled, I said something about a log just sparking (what that meant, I do not know) and it made a hotter fire than I expected but I’vequitegotithandledrightnowthanksforaskingbutIreallyHAVEtofuckinggonowBYE.

And I think I basically then slammed the door in his face.  This from the woman who complains that Seattle sucks for having any kind of relationship with one’s neighbors.

I got back to my water hurling, and finally got the damn thing to go out.  Then I resumed breathing for the first time in a good ten minutes.

Then I sat in front of the stove trembling and covered in cold sweat for something close to two hours, willing my heart rate to go down, enjoying some lovely post-adrenaline nausea, and feeling generally betrayed that fire, so often my BFF, had not only decided it didn’t want to be friends with me anymore, but had apparently also determined that my number was up and it was time for me to die.

When my knees finally stopped knocking, I spent another hour or two walking around upstairs obsessively, sniffing the floors, the closets, the walls, because it occurred to me that I did not know the exact path of the exhaust pipe from stove to chimney, and there may well be a fire still somewhere in it that would burn the house down.  It’s taken me until today, to be honest, to feel pretty certain there is not some sneaky little fire brewing somewhere in the innards of the house that’s going to burn us all to a crisp in our sleep.

Mark was back with his ex-roomies in south Seattle that day eating dead things, but I resisted the very strong urge to call him.  For one, I don’t know what on earth he could have done from 45 minutes away.  But more than that, I had this flashback to the time a few years ago when I was here visiting, when he was making his second short film, and when I got the migraine that wound up literally freezing my body up to the point that I had to call him in the midst of movie-making to let him know I had something of a concern about…well, part of my body seeming to be paralyzed.

So, I then had this extended solitary sob session about how I couldn’t call Mark and ruin his day, or give him the impression that if he went somewhere out of reach all hell would break loose.  Silly, really, since he’s been quite out of reach many times without incident, but welcome to my dysfunction.  Suffice it to say, we had a very interesting, “Hi, honey, so how was your day?” conversation when he got home that evening, save that we mostly had to have it in the morning because I wasn’t yet ready to relive the events of the day at that point.  It says an awful lot about our relationship that I can say something like, “I think I almost burnt the house down, but can we talk about that in the morning?” and get an easy nod.

After I finally told him my tale of woe the next day, he went out and bought me Wall-e (which I consider the film Pixar surely made just for me, since no one loves an apocalypse with a gender-neutral romance as much as I).  The boy’s the bee’s knees, I tell you.

So, the wood stove is currently closed for business.  I solemnly shut the doors Thursday, and I have no idea when I will open them again. We’re going to get a chimney-sweep out here, but even after that, I’m not sure how comfy I’ll be with a fire in here without not only the much-needed fire extinguisher, but perhaps also a flame-retardant suit to wear, as well.

I’m off a bit later today to another homeless youth drop-on center, to see about adding them to my outreach roster.  The beginning of the week is going to be business as usual (save my morning fires, sigh), Thursday I go to the clinic in the morning, and then within a few hours, will high-tail it to the airport for a visit back home to Chicago, as well as to see my sister in Indiana.  I’ll be with my mother and sister for the first few days, then have a couple of days to spend in-city to see my Dad, my friend Erika, maybe a couple other folks, and a possible meeting with someone I’ve been sorting through some old stuff with and forging a relationship anew (yes, I’m being obtuse).

The fact that I expect to freeze to death, not having gone back to Midwest during the winter months since I moved here, is something I’m trying to keep from having ruin my trip. I pity the poor soul who kindly suggests making a fire to help warm me up.

(Oddly enough, the fourth fire of the year in my father’s SRO happened not the day before, on the floor right beneath his room.  He told me this the next day on the phone and I immediately thanked myself for deciding it was best not to tell him about my own little flaming adventure.  He, no doubt, would have considered it prophetic as he does nearly anything anymore.  Hell, maybe he would have been right this time.)

Yesterday, a TIME magazine piece on cosmetic vulval surgeries nearly did our completely excellent server in. Then today, another piece from UC Santa Cruz’ student newspaper came out (which is a much more fun piece than the TIME one, and the reporter who did it was great fun to talk to and get connected with everyone).  Media avalanche, man.  Jaysis.

By the by, last night while I was in the living room indulging in a mini-film fest of tragic 80’s figures (Sid and Nancy is what was on at the time), I overheard Mark upstairs on the phone bragging a blue streak about me and my work to a friend.   It was just about one of the sweetest things ever, and I totally melted like a stick o’vegan buttery spread.

In making some calls for the CONNECT program, I set up a observation day at yet another program for homeless youth where they want some sex ed.  I am just loving that when it comes to my local work, I seem to be finding myself more and more often serving…well, the me of yesteryear.  At that training a weekish ago, a lot of it focused on basically reliving/telling our teen years, and I was telling my tales (which, by the way, is far more difficult to do in a group of people you don’t know in pewrson than it is in writing), I realized that I had a level of appreciation for my own pluck and ability to survive that I’d not ever given the proper weight to, even though it’s something I see in these kids and appreciate all the time about them.  It seems like kismet, really.

With that, I’m out to go do some more outreach today.  And I am hoping that unlike the very awkward Not-So-Great Tote Bag Explosion of 2008 that happened on the bus a couple months ago that resulted in every method of birth control imaginable spilling all over the floor (and every single person on said bus all but freezing in their seats, lest they have to TOUCH any of it: what the heck is with that?), I will not find that both all that stuff as well as a bunch of abortion instruments get restless and feel the need for an untoward escape.

Yipes!  I didn’t mean to fall off the map.  Time just got away from me.  That keeps happening more and more often, and I can’t figure if it’s age, juggling all I do in a given day or week, living somewhere with less light, or just me becoming flakier as my life goes on.  The other day, I was setting a goal for myself for six months from now, and for a second I thought, “Oh, ugh: six months is such a long time,” until I realized that anymore, it seems like I blink and a whole year has passed me by.

Anyway.  Dad was here, and now he’s gone back to Chicago.  He did something inadvertently horrendous to one of my computers and felt horrible about it, so I had to appear much less bothered than I was so as not to cause him to feel worse, but that misadventure notwithstanding, it was a good visit.  His being here meant that he was mostly crisis-free for a couple weeks, and I got a break from trying to manage his crises.  He was in good spirits, despite getting lousy weather — which he always hits when he visits, no matter what time of year we pick.  The weekend I was away on Bainbridge at a training, he and Mark had a meat-cooking fest in my absence which they both seemed to enjoy quite a lot.  He had one very rough day here, where he was looking up old friends and found that 11 of 13 he could find had died, but it was nice to be able to be there for him, in person, to give him some support with that.  I was also able to reiterate that I need to make what efforts I can to get him into a safer, sounder living situation and while I’m not sure how much he’s going to help me with the follow-through, he was not resistant to that.

The thing that always sucks, of course, is saying goodbye to him when he goes.  Given his age and the way that he lives (if you can call it that), there’s always this ooky feeling in my guts that any given goodbye is the last one, and I freak out a bit, worried there’s something I should make sure I say or do just in case.

While the visit was good, I spent most of the weekend simply enjoying having my house back, and some space to myself.  Over the last two and some weeks, I’ve had the visit from my Dad, a group night for the election, also a visit for a few days from a supporter, the four days in a group immersion on Bainbridge, an extra night with someone (who I swear I was separated at birth from: I’m so bummed she lives in Austin) from that training here at home and two friends swung by from Minneapolis.  Seeing all of those people was absolutely the good stuff, however that is a LOT of people for me to be around without having any time at all to myself.  When I need to decompress, I decompress alone, not with other people.  I dig people, and I’m outgoing, for sure, but I’m someone who you will rarely hear complaining about being or feeling alone.

There weren’t enough kids at the residential center this week for me to go in and do education, but tomorrow I have a presentation for an Americorps thing that should be good.  The training I was in the week before last was for Teen Talking Circles, a model which we plan to bring into some work through the clinic, as well as bringing sex ed into an existing circle, and which I also want to figure out a way to use at Scarleteen.  Saturday I head back over to the island for the day to participate in and observe one of the existing circles to see how we can best work this.  Amidst all of that is a pile of the usual Scarleteen work, some clinic work, a bunch of clerical boredom, and a batch of other things I am, per usual, feeling totally behind with and really need to find some way to get at least marginally caught up with before I head to Chicago on the 4th.

Tangentially, I was on the phone with the education director for the clinic expressing that with the Obama win, I’m finding myself trying to be sure that any of us working in sexual or reproductive health and justice make the most of this.  We were both expressing that over the last eight years, so much of the work we have done as a group in this arena has had to be focused on the defensive, on managing crisis, on trying to repair what kept getting broken or robbed that it’s a bit tricky to try and move our minds out of that mode to be sure we don’t miss the opportunity to work differently while we have it.  Merle Hoffman, at RH Reality Check last week, did mention a backlash to be concerned with — and I think she’s sage in her concerns — but I also want to be sure that we find ways to start doing so many of the things we have wanted to do, but haven’t been able to, now that we’ll have decent administrative support.

I think, for instance, about all of the things the feminist women’s health centers and organizations so badly wanted to do — more holistic self-care for women, really focusing on the empowerment of reproductive choices, nurturing bonds between women around abortion, sex education — around and after Roe Vs. Wade, but how few of them were able to come into being given the antichoice rise.  I’ve been noticing over the last year how many progressive people seem to have changed even the way they talk about things like abortion and teen sexuality, and how clearly influenced by the right some of that has been: if I hear one more person talk about how abortion is always something we want to avoid, how it’s always so sad, or listen to someone for the millionth time feel the only way they can defend it is to talk about rape, incest or genetic issues, I will likely scream.  Same goes with teen and young adult sexuality: this “waiting is always better” stuff has not only gotten really old, it’s seriously dishonest, especially coming from plenty of adults who didn’t “wait” themselves and had a fine time sexually in their teens or twenties.

So, time for a mental shift and some serious planning.  If we’ve learned anything over the last few decades, it’s that we can never count on some sort of perpetual state of grace when it comes to this stuff.  The pendulum always keeps on swinging, and you never know when it’s going to swing back.

On a lighter note, somehow, a couple years ago, I got put on the newsletter for the American Family Association.  I have no idea how, but once I started seeing these mails, I was quite delighted I did — not because they fill me in on some sort of super-secret diabolical plans, but because they show how freaking SILLY these folks so often are, and it makes it a lot easier for me to relax about them.

Suffice it to say, after the election, the emails have now moved to a daily delivery, in a constant state of panic, because, as you no doubt know, progressives want to take everyone’s rights away by adding or protecting rights for everyone.  (Don’t try and make sense of it, just roll with it.)  Headlines such as “Advice to Christians: Defend life, prepare for persecution,” “Jesus ejected from school,” “Kindergartners given homosexual ‘pledge cards’,” and “Conservative expression on campuses in peril,” are a few of the latest.

But my favorite panic-induced headline of last week? Men in Drag at the White House?!  This bulletin involved several paragraphs about how Obama is going to have men wearing heels (Don’tcha just bet that he’ll even REQUIRE it?) who work for him. Obama has made clear that both gender identity and sexual orientation are included in their hiring policy per nondiscrimination: that’s where this comes from.  It addressed how women who work for the federal government will now be utterly unsafe from rampant attacks in bathrooms from the vicious transgender women who may well be allowed to use them.  You know how how those fights over the toilet paper end when there’s an MTF involved, after all: it’s always all broken nails, blood and hairspray over but that one little square.  Oh, the terror.

I confess I’m short of eloquence this morning, in part because I still have only had brief increments of a few minutes in which I have been able to stop crying, for all the best reasons.  I’m still a bit frozen still by a very unexpected and long exhale of breath I have effectively been holding for eight freaking years. I’m still trying to parse actually feeling proud of the nation I live in: I personally rarely HAVE ever felt that pride. And I can’t fib: while I think that absolutely, positively, “Yes we can” is an incredibly powerful statement, and I am loving hearing it be so meaningful to so many, “Oh no you didn’t!” is feeling mighty fine on the tongue this morning, too.

Nelson Mandela is better at this stuff than most of us, and I’m finding that what he had to say is resonating with me today more than nearly any other commentary I’ve heard.

“We join people in your country and around the world in congratulating you on becoming the President-Elect of the United States. Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.

We note and applaud your commitment to supporting the cause of peace and security around the world. We trust that you will also make it the mission of your Presidency to combat the scourge of poverty and disease everywhere.

We wish you strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years that lie ahead. We are sure you will ultimately achieve your dream making the United States of America a full partner in a community of nations committed to peace and prosperity for all.”

I know it’s a bit late in the game for those with early voting, but I just wanted to write a letter about voting this year. I do this every election for my friends and family, though I often write it more for those in the concentric circles around the people I know than for those closest to me. I often see or represent some groups plenty of people don’t have a familiarity with or a real awareness of.Perhaps obviously, I’d also encourage you to pen a letter like this of your own, but you’re also more than welcome to circulate mine.

What I don’t usually do is publish this letter, but I am making an exception this year.

For those not in the know, I’m a longtime Green Party person. And I have loved that this year, my parties presidential ticket is two amazing women of color, two peacemakers, two big thinkers, two women who — in my book — really get it and who could be amazing leaders.

While I’d love to vote for my party (wouldn’t I always!), this is another of those years where I don’t feel able to do that, because there is simply no room for what ultimately is a symbolic vote. This country isn’t ready for a two-woman ticket yet, let alone a third party or the Green party. I don’t like the two-party system, but at the same time, I don’t feel like this week is the right time for me to fight that battle. However, I have to say that this year, I don’t feel very let down about voting outside my party. In fact, even if my party had a chance this time around, I’d probably still vote outside of it.

I want to take a few minutes of your time and tell you not about me, but about some of the women I meet at the clinic I work at, who come into my office for counsel and tell me some of the most intimate details of their lives. As you already know, I provide education to millions of young people every year (with no public funding, by the by, due to providing accurate information, a drought which will continue in another Republican administration), and counsel anywhere from ten to fifty people one-on-one daily at Scarleteen. But I don’t sit down with them in person the way I do with the women at the clinic: I don’t see their faces, they don’t ask me for a hug or to hold their hand, or cry where I can see them when I simply acknowledge the challenges they face as real and not at all unimportant.

I want to tell how you much they are like me, you, other women and people you know. I want to tell you how important they are, even though they are clearly so easy for some to ignore or dismiss, even though they are so often rendered invisible.

Many of them already have more children than they can support or care for. Many are of color and/or low-income, and often become pregnant not because they have planned pregnancies with cooperative partners, but because their access to contraception has become more and more limited thanks in part to the Bush administration over the last eight years. Many also have sexually transmitted infections as well as being unwantedly pregnant, both too frequently due to an ignorance purposefully cultivated by the Bush administration through the billions of dollars sunk into knowingly inaccurate abstinence-only education, some of those funds even moved from family planning programs which not only provide accurate information, but also provide things like contraception, sexual healthcare and maternal healthcare for women who WANT to be or remain pregnant.

Some are in my office because they have been raped, a crime which still is diminished by so many in our government (and Palin did indeed allow Wasilla to charge rape victims, sometimes as much as over $1,000, for the rape kits done on them by the justice system: we see a lot of clients at our clinic from Alaska), and where many women also find themselves denied emergency contraception to prevent pregnancies due to Bush administrative support of healthcare providers refusing to supply effective and wanted contraception to women based on their own “moral” judgments. Bush may well leave a legacy of the HHS policy to be decided on this week which now would allow doctors and healthcare workers in public healthcare, even in healthcare clinics specifically for family planning, to refuse all contraception to patients based on their own personal feelings about the “immorality” of family planning.

Many have such a hard time taking care of the children they already have because they still are not paid at the same rates as men (despite often having the greater burden of expenses, particularly single mothers). Many, like myself, live without healthcare or in grossly inadequate public health programs, if they can even qualify for those. Many have children who are having to also go without healthcare (our child mortality and health rate is one of the worst of all developed nations); many have children who most certainly have been a child left behind when it comes to education. Some of them do not even want to terminate their pregnancies: they would want to have more children, but the reality of their lives — they are often already parents, they know what parenting requires — does not allow for that choice, nor does the continued lack of support for mothers and children in this country, a hard irony when coming from those who say they want to prevent abortion so badly. Some grew up in foster care, and know too well the truth of how many adoptive families there really are out there, especially when we’re talking about children of color: they don’t want to risk birthing a child who will end up in the foster care system.

Given we have a big base here in Washington, some are in the military (where abortion has been banned and contraceptive access grossly limited in recent times, a ban McCain and Palin support, and this in spite of the fact that the rate of sexual assault for women in the military is exponentially higher than it is for civilian women), some have partners in the military. Many of the women with partners in the military take care of two many children without help or assistance, and suffer from neglect or domestic violence due to partners who come home suffering from PTSD, gross fatigue, injuries and other issues and ailments our VA has been doing little about. (This is a particular issue for women in the military, who are having a doubly-tough time getting veterans care and assistance.) Many of these military families have had losses over the years due to the war in Iraq, and many of them still in service there want to just come home.

John McCain and Sarah Palin not only both seek to axe Roe vs. Wade, they both have records and statements of nonsupport for the many things we know prevent abortion in the first place: sound family planning programs, accurate sex education, domestic violence prevention, and an awareness of the many women whose lives do not even remotely resemble their own. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every intention of continuing harmful abstinence-education policies as well as continuing to underfund or reduce sound family planning.

McCain was also one of the rare senators who has voted against anti-domestic terrorism measures (the FACE act) for clients and workers at family planning and abortion clinics: the law and protections which help keep our clients — including those coming in for pregnancy tests who intend to remain pregnant, or those not pregnant wanting birth control or a pap smear, thank you very much — my co-workers and myself from being bombed or shot in the head on any given day.

The McCain healthcare plan is lunacy, seeming reasonable only to those with the wealth to actually HAVE $5,000 a year to spend on healthcare. McCain also has opposed many things which would improve the status of mothers, children and families in the states, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act. McCain voted to take $75 million from the Maternal and Child Health Block to fund abstinence-only programs, and voted to terminate Title X, our national family planning program which serves those most in need of birth control and reproductive health services.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are against the Lily Ledbetter act, a bill which would allow women more time to discover their pay isn’t fair and to seek restitution. They paint it as a “lawyer’s dream,” cavalierly — perhaps because neither of them are in personal need of it — but it’s a woman’s dream: it certainly was Lily Ledbetter’s dream when she discovered after a good deal of time — as is often the case — how unfairly she was being treated. Nearly all of the veterans organizations are in support of Obama and Biden. Despite being a veteran himself, John McCain has not had a record of being particularly helpful for or supportive of other veterans.

Neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin are feminist: neither ever have, nor intend to, provide real support or help for all women nor to strive for gender equality. from what I can tell, John McCain was not looking to empower women with his choice of Palin: he was looking to empower himself with eye-candy and someone the religious right would like better than they like him. McCain has voted continually to cut or underfund the Violence Against Women Act which Biden has been the champion of and the Victim Economic Security and Safety Act which Obama passed.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are no friends of general public education (or the arts), which empowers those most marginalized in this nation, both intellectually and emotionally: the women and children most at-risk of some of the worst circumstances are more often the most uneducated or undereducated. Suffice it to say, John McCain and Sarah Palin are also no friend of anyone who is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden not only fit all of these bills, they fit most fantastically.

These are issues they not only have a realistic awareness of, but a deep desire to remedy. These are issues they actually talk about, and make actual plans for, rather than barely give lip service to in order to court favor or votes, when even that is given at all. These are issues they view through the lens of fairness and equity, not through the lens of what they want for themselves or via their personal religious doctrines.

If these issues seem less important than taxes, the war in Iraq or international diplomacy, I’d posit you reconsider. All in all, no matter who wins, someone is likely to have to pay higher taxes. All in all, no matter who wins, given the systems of support per the very structure of our government, we’re probably going to do just fine when it comes to diplomacy (though I’d say Obama will likely do a better job there, given how many foreign nations have voiced a far deeper respect for him than McCain). All in all, no matter who wins, working our way out of the mess Bush has made in Iraq is going to be difficult at best.

But the kinds of issues I’m talking about aren’t minor or secondary. Civil rights, human rights, issues are foundational for our nation and for the quality of life of everyone here. They are the very reason this nation was founded, and why the men and women who entered into the wild experiment that was democracy here took the grave risks they did to do so. They knew — as so many of us know — that life is only so valuable without a certain quality of life. They didn’t find these kinds of issues to be trivial, neither do I…and neither should any of us.

These kinds of issues are where we can really see the biggest differences between the candidates, and they are profound differences which deeply impact the quality of life of so many citizens. These are the kinds of issues where we can get a good look at who a candidate really cares about, and if they truly have in mind the interests of all of us, or merely some. These are the issues where we can see if a candidate intends to unite all of us or create or enable deeper divisions. These are, in my mind, the kinds of issues where we can see who is ready to lead (and where to) and who is not.

I won’t lie, I want things to be better for me, personally.

I want healthcare for the first time in over 20 years: I need it badly. I want the young people I counsel to come to me able to spell, and the young women I see at Scarleteen to not doubt their equality as they still so often do. I want those of us who aren’t heterosexual to have the same rights as those who are. I want to be able to continue to obtain contraception since I continue to know I cannot afford a child — financially or per our joint health — nor do I want to become pregnant. I do not want to have to counsel women choosing abortion solely or primarily because they have not been afforded the same rights and benefits as other women when it comes to contraception, maternal healthcare, pay, protection from abuse or assault and other equities anymore. I want to be able to get the same funding for the accurate, needed health information I supply to millions a year that organizations who don’t even serve a fraction of that number of, and who supply purposefully and knowingly inaccurate information to (and part of my job is often correcting, or managing crises which have arisen from that misinformation), do. I want the arts supported. I want equal pay for equal work.

I want this country to stop calling one-sided xenophobic assaults “wars” or “liberation.” I want for America to stop being the country every other country validly despises and is ashamed of. I want for the 20 years I have spent in activism about education, women’s rights, young people’s rights and sexual and reproductive health to really mean something, and for a chance to do the work I do without constantly feeling I am fighting a battle I cannot make strides in, let alone win.

But — and perhaps even more so — I want these things and more for the women I meet at the clinic.

The beauty is that taking care of their needs doesn’t stand in the way of taking care of my needs, your needs or anyone else’s needs.

That’s the beauty of real fairness, real equity, real investment in the aims laid down in the Constitution and the heart of this nation. That’s the beauty of being civic-minded, and doing your best to think, when you vote, not just of yourself but for all of us as a nation.

I don’t expect Barack Obama or anyone else to be able to fix all of this in a mere four years. But what I do expect, and am absolutely certain I will see, is for Barack Obama to try. I do expect both some actual remedies and also real groundwork laid in order to make the fixes which are more long-term possible, as well as a foundation and a spirit which may well just influence how people think so that people like the invisible women I see become more visible. I have not been even remotely hopeful that that is something I would finally start seeing for years: it is an amazing thing to feel it possible in the near future today.

That’s a whole lot of why I’m not only voting outside my party and for Barack Obama, but why I feel exceptionally good about it. And it’s why I’d ask you to consider doing the same.

If you’re still on the fence, do some research today. Be sure to look through the nonpartisan voting guide at Scarleteen.

But whatever you do, by all means, please vote. And when you do, do your very best to do so with the real aims of this nation — and with your hopes, not your fears — at heart.

(I decided I didn’t really want the last entry to live forever at Google.  It felt more private than usual.  By my strange standards of what passes as  my own privacy anyway.  The password is just “password.”)

This guy is certainly not the first person to say this stuff, and alas, it’s unlikely he’ll be the last.

But sweet Jaysis, could someone, anyone at all, explain to me HOW — exactly — same-sex relationships threaten, or make less strong, opposite-sex relationships?  Have straight relationships, because they’re allowed to exist and be recognized, made my same-sex relationships lesser in my experience without my even knowing it? Because I’ve no interest in participating in marriage, but want my relationships to have import, does that mean that I should feel that married people are a threat to me?  Do friendships make romantic relationships less meaningful?  Do strong and stated-to-be-important parent-child relationships do that to romances or sexual relationships, or vice-versa?  Does my love for my dog undermine or negate your love for your cat?  Does my love of biking render your love of running meaningless?  How can one person’s traditions, somehow dismantle someone else’s when both are allowed and can exist simultaneously?

HOW, for the love of gawd, HOW?

I know: I’m asking the wrong crowd.  I’m just so endlessly tired of hearing this sentiment but even more so, tired of never once hearing it actually explained with that funny thing we call logic.

(And for the record, do people like Rep. Hayes just conveniently forget that it’s pretty likely, by his standards, that those wacky guys who founded the nation in the first place would be anti-American?  Yeah, probably.)

Just another quickie from me before I forget.

Heath (Mark’s best friend who has become my good friend as well over the years) and I went to see Blindness on Sunday.

…and it blew my brain right out of my head.  It was one of the more compelling pieces of art I’ve seen in a good, long while, to the degree that it was incredibly humbling.  I love pieces of work that make me feel like I just don’t even rate as an artist.  I also — and I know there is a good deal of disagreement on this — think it’s one of the more feminist films I’ve seen in a long time.

And as a visual artist?  Bloody hell, was it a feast for the eyes, and I’m so glad I saw it on a huge screen in a dark theater.  There’s a gorgeous still in nearly every freaking frame.  If I didn’t know firsthand from being around sets on mark that I cannot stand the dynamic of film sets and the process of filmmaking, it’d make me want to be a filmmaker.

A few caveats: first and foremost, there is a rape scene in the movie which could be incredibly triggering.  Oddly, it wasn’t triggering for me — for a few minutes there, I was on the edge of my seat figuring I should be ready to step out if I needed to — and I’m not sure why, save that I tend to be triggered less by scenes of rape which were not meant to be triggering.  But it is very potently real in many ways, particularly if your triggers are about words and sounds.  But at the same time, I appreciated that scene a lot, because I didn’t perceive any diminishment in it or around it: it was in no way made sexy, and in no way felt contrived.  It was ugly, ugly business.

And that’s part of what really got me with this film: it had this range of humanity from the most ugly to the most beautiful that I found really rare.

I should also mention that I do, and have always, have a love for apocalypse films.  Demented as it is, they comfort me.  I like seeing the reset button on existence hit. I also tend to go a little dark in my tastes and like going there.  Has anyone else seen it?  I’d love to gab about it.

That’s it from me: I just knew I’d space.  I am FINALLY done with that freaking mailing, and also finally finished a big, personal piece for RH Reality Check that wore me the heck out.   The last big thing on my desk before I can get back to my usual level of mania is the voting guide, so I am hoping I can get that done by the time the weekend is over.  I should know by now that sustaining my usual degree of overwork and overextension has me at my limit as it is, and be able to see when I’m trying to push past it, but alas.  Someday I’ll learn my lesson.

I really, really love what John Lewis has said.  That is all.

P.S. When someone you say you really respect makes that kind of criticism?  A critique that, given who they are and what they have done, you can pretty well know they are not going to throw around casually?  You don’t get defensive, you don’t puff up and knee-jerk deny.  You freaking well listen.

Silence for a week, and then two from me in one day.  Go figure.

The magazine-shillers sent someone else to my door today, someone who clearly intended to work the scam like a pro, rather than easily accept but one no from me for an answer then wind up getting free, drop-in pregnancy options and birth control counseling.

But I don’t think he worked it very well, and I’m wondering how long it took this guy to figure that out.

If this was a hustle, it clearly was mine, even though I had no intent on hustling anyone.  All I intended to do was answer the door.

So, the doorbell buzzes, in the obnoxious way that it does when I’m living under the illusion that working from home means a lack of interruption, and I go to the door.  A man I’d guess to be in his mid-twenties is standing there, in some version of suit.  He introduces himself, tells me he’s not from here and is working on getting a new accent (I don’t know why he says this), informs me he’s trying to better himself by selling these magazines.  I see that he has an identical folder in his hand that the girl from last week did, and I let him know then and there that I won’t be buying any magazines, nor will I be supporting these kinds of enterprises.  I make clear that I fully support him in doing whatever he feels he needs to to improve his life, but that my impression is that this ain’t it.

He doesn’t like this answer.  He starts to go into the whole spiel about the magazines from the start, how he gets a commission, how I need to do my research.  So, I explain that, as a point of fact, I did quite a bit of it on these very groups not even two weeks ago, when I was very distressed about the state of another “employee” who showed up at my door.  I explain that what I found were BBB reports that were not at all good, a few police reports that were really creepy, some ooky self-reporting, and a few youth advocacy organizations and writers which made clear that not only does his employer scam consumers, the biggest victims are the people who work for them.  I then tell him that while I would be glad to grab him a few bucks and just give them to him directly, I would not be giving this company anything.  He says okay when I offer the bucks.

I go inside, get a five, and when I go to hand it to him, he then immediately plays an “I’m so offended” schtick. I want to tell him that given United States politics over the last month, he couldn’t possibly be more offended than I am of late, but I suspect this will fall on deaf ears.

“Why would you give me money?” he asks.

“Ummm, because you came to my door asking for it, and told me how down and out you are?” I reply, as if asked why it was raining in Seattle.  Is this a trick question?  I suddenly feel certain I didn’t get enough coffee today, but that there might not be enough for me to make sense of this if I drank the whole continent of South America.

“I don’t want your handouts,” he says, and I wonder if he’ll get so in character as to spit on it, but he disappoints. “I’m trying to make a respectable living.”

“Okay, then, don’t take it” I say, “but I think to do that you’re going to need to work for someone besides outfits like this.”

“This is a good company,” he says, and we go back and forth a little more about how I’m just not down with that, and how much this could help him out. He states that other neighbors have said similar, and we all just don’t understand the truth about this wonderful endeavor.

I reiterate that I am fine with helping him personally, just not the sham business, though I have little to give since Rockefeller never lived here and wouldn’t have enjoyed even a visit very much.  I mention that if the amount insults him, he should be aware that the fact that that’s all I have in my wallet insults me, too.

He asks how I would feel if I lived on donations. I say that’s pretty much exactly what I do since I’ve worked in the non-profit sector for almost all of my life, and have been scraping the bottom of the barrel since I was born, and I feel as fine as can be expected about it.  Hell, if it’s okay for the Pope, why shouldn’t it be okay for him or me?

I don’t think I was supposed to answer that way.

He then pulls out a fat wad of money and shoves a ten dollar bill into my hand.  “There,” he says, “take that.”  He says this in the way one suggests that a person meet them at dawn with a pistol and a prayer.

I explain that I don’t want it, but he won’t take it back. We do this dance for a little while. He does not know what “Oy gavalt,” means and accuses me of calling him names on top of trying to make him take my dirty money when he wants nothing to do with it.

He also won’t leave.

I then state that I’d appreciate it if he’d take his ten dollars back and be on his way, as I am not going to buy anything from him, nor am I going to stand outside all day arguing about it.  He patently refuses to take back the ten dollars. He huffs, much in the way my little dog does, though I find her more believable.

“How does it feel getting a handout?!?” he asks, indignantly.

“Umm… fine?” I say.  “I’m ten bucks richer than I was before I answered my door.”

We both stand there silent, unmoveable, for a very long minute, until I figure there’s really nothing left for me to do, say thank you and close the door.  he makes a point of whistling very, very loudly as he’s walking away from the house, but I couldn’t begin to tell you why or what he was whistling.  But I know it wasn’t Dixie.

The temptation to knock on the doors of all of my neighbors and tell them that if they handed this guy money, they’d get double back was great, but I resisted, mostly because I don’t know my neighbors any better than they know this guy.

Instead, I headed out to pick up my printing and on the way home, bought myself a shiny new pack of cigarettes and a coffee with my handout I was supposed to feel so bad about.

I’m still waiting to feel bad.  Mostly I just feel adequately caffeinated, which is a relief.

I don’t mean to be such a stranger.

I’m nearly finished with organizing, making and getting out the big mailing to nearly 200 organizations in Washington State for CONNECT.  It’s crazy how hard some of this has seemed: I’ve clearly gotten spoiled over the years by new media.  The funny thing is that way back in the day in the early 90’s, when I ran my little alternative school, I was the queen of all things paper: I refused to use any kind of computer at all, even a basic word processor for the first year.  For several of those years, I produced a pretty involved alternative ECE newsletter and doing that and I don’t remember getting it out being this big of a deal.

However, it’s looking shiny and awesome and once it’s off my desk, I will be one very happy chick.

I’ve also been overwhelmed with just trying to run two programs at once, getting the voting guide done for Scarleteen, and trying to keep up with all the usual work there. I’ve been distracted — though that’s likely not the best word — with the elections, national and local.  And per usual, I’m still just not feeling well.  I don’t think I have ever had a stretch of time where I’ve gotten so much sleep every night (I’ve been managing to get 7 or 8 hours a night), and yet, I feel like I could sleep all day, every day, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

I keep thinking that I should be very personally concerned about the current financial crisis, but then I realize that a) I own nothing, b) most of the contributions to Scarleteen aren’t even from the U.S., and c) I don’t make shit now and don’t know how much worse it could really get.  I also remind myself that I have enough to worry about already.  I guess sometimes freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose.

My Dad is coming up here in a couple of weeks, and staying for a couple of weeks.  He’s been in a really bad way lately, which at times means my having to have one or more long phone conversations with him in a day, where his moods and what he is saying are just all over the place, which is really tough to deal with. One of the most recent several-day conversations involved me patently refusing to cancel his plane ticket simply because he was certain that the dreams he has been having about plane crashes were prophetic and that he would die on the way here (which is a strange concern for someone with a long history of being suicidal to have, but so be it).  Unfortunately, this dream stuff has gone on before, and it’s tough to expect him not to believe them: his mother, my grandmother, stated she was going to die to everyone mere hours before she and half his family were in the truck accident that killed them when I was young.

I’ve had times in my life where I’ve gone through phases of this with him, but it just feels like it’s happening more frequently lately, to the point that I feel like I might need to start looking into what exactly someone in my income bracket can do to find residential care for a parent. Him living with us just isn’t an option: he would never agree to it, and even though we’ve lived well together before — more harmoniously than I live with most people, to be truthful — I don’t see it being a good answer.

How on earth, if I could find something, I could convince my father to even consider such a thing, I don’t know.  In so many ways, he’s so progressive, but there always remains some very prototypical Italian pride my father clings to.   I honestly don’t even know how I’d bring this up to him, and explain why I feel we need to consider it without hurting his pride and also triggering his guilt: he expresses guilt constantly (always has, but more of late) that I’m the only person he has in the world to lean on and that I have no other help or support when it comes to him.  But I’m just getting really worried, and I just feel like I have lived long enough with my parent living like this.  It’s breaking my heart, and I just can’t stand it anymore.

The place he stays at is still in one of the worst parts of the city, worse than it was when we lived in that neighborhood, and it’s just really vile.  Last week, he had this major freakout — validly — because in his dank little room the size of your average bathroom, four huge rats had gotten in.  He was so scared and wigged out that he wound up blowing his disability check to sleep in a motel for a couple of nights.  More then once while I have been talking to him, I can hear freaking gunshots. Given how he is mentally, as well, the isolation that he has very clearly just is not healthy for him: he’s so much better when he’s here, around people, somewhere safe.

I don’t suppose there’s any of you out there around my age who have been in a similar situation with any idea of where I’d even start when it came to looking for this kind of care?

Anyway, that’s most of my stuff.  Things at home here are totally fine, including that my boyfriend found a way to turn bacon into flowers last week, his new brag of late.

Apparently, if you’re at the farmer’s market, and you indulge your carnivore-sweetie’s longing for good bacon by giving him five bucks to buy some from the butcher, and he buys it, but then turns around and buys you a $5 bouquet, bacon has been turned into flowers.   Now you know.

I’m very lucky, dead pigs notwithstanding, to have his whimsy around.  I was just remarking to him the other day that it’s one of the things I appreciate most about him, and a quality I find it pretty rare with a lot of people: I need creativity around me, I need silliness, I need to be whimsical with someone.  I can go without a lot of things in my life, or in a given week or day, but if a day or two passes and I haven’t laughed my arse off, I just can’t deal.  While now and then that means that sex gets shelved — because we tend to take a left turn at silly, to the point that there is just no turning back — I’ll take it.

And on that note, I leave you with something I begged him to let me have a while back, which he penned during a meeting he was clearly very interested in at his day job.  I don’t think his boss would be particularly delighted, but I’m fairly certain I don’t care.

Well, that was unexpected.

So, an 18-year-old girl came to my door selling magazines for one of these work programs (which are very questionable, to say the least: they’re often basically migrant worker situations which prey on young people).  Even more questionable than I thought: turns out her boss has told the young women there they will get fired if they become pregnant.  I’ll be making a phone call in a few days to assure she’s not linked to that disclosure. Grrrr.  Suffice it to say, I went inside and got her NWLC contacts in case she or anyone else should need them.

She had caught me photographing spiders when she walked up, and we wound up talking for a bit. I do have some mercy for door-to-door folks…well, when they aren’t trying to sell me religion.  Last week the Mormons came.  Telling them I was Buddhist didn’t get them gone (”That’s cool,” they said.  “If it’s so cool, you can respect it and go now,” said I.  They didn’t) and in trying other ways to get them gone, the pug ran out.  She doesn’t care why someone is there, just if they’ll pet her — so I wound up telling them as they were oh-cute-pugging her that she, too, was Buddhist.  That got me enough of a pause to be able to scoop up the pug and shut the door. It was at least more polite then the time years back in Chicago when I walked out naked to scare them off.  That works very well, for the record.  It was just too cold that day, and I’m a bit less emboldened to use that trick with my 38-year-old-ass than I was with my 23-year-old one.  Anyway.

But folks like this, PIRG canvassers and such… it sucks having a door slammed in your face on those jobs every few minutes, so I do tend to offer a porch seat and tea when I’m not smack in the middle of something.

As anyone who knows me knows, I have a strong confessional vibe: people I barely know tell me their unsolicited life stories on a daily basis. I sometimes know more about someone I have just met within minutes than others close to them know after years.  When I take quizzes to find out what job is the best one for me, clergy always comes up first.  G’won and laugh: it’s okay.

She’s the mother of a three-year-old already, was taking about how tough it was, and I mentioned what I do for my living in the course of sympathizing.  She then lets out a long breath and tells me that she’s three weeks pregnant again, only recently relocated to here, and has wanted an abortion, but had no idea where to go, how to go about it, what it entailed.   She also starts talking about her birth control history and how much Depo sucked for her.

So, there I was, just back from counseling the homeless teens — and truthfully, looking forward to a bit of a slow afternoon — basically doing a gratis options counseling session, as well as a birth control and DSHS-benefits consult, on my front porch. (And yes: for the big worriers, I know. I know that it was entirely possible this girl who looked and sounded just like the teen mother from Jackson she said she was was someone else entirely, and I took a risk.  I know.  But I also know that look, that sigh, and how this conversation goes with someone who really needs to have it.)

Obviously, I didn’t have to do any of that, I volunteered it, so it was hardly like my day was ruined.  Her day was apparently made, mind: she thanked the powers that be for landing at my door more than once.  It was just…very unusual.

Note to self: when really wanting a few hours of downtime, don’t answer the door.  Because apparently, it’s not as simple as not going to the work: it can also come right to you.

It’s been a strange day, period, actually.  On my way to the residental center, I got stuck sitting still on a bus for a half an hour because we just happened to pull up to a corner downtown in the middle of a freaking bank robbery.  Thankfully, when the cops poked heads into the busses, I didn’t set off anyone’s radar.  I tend to be one of those folks who authority figures immediately identify on sight as trouble, so I was glad my silent mantra about not being searched when I was barely awake was successful.

I think I need to be done leaving the house or opening the door today.

I call to you, Internet, for help with two fairly droll issues.

1) Anyone here an Excel-yoda?  What I need to do is use an existing contacts database (one that was organized pretty poorly, especially for this purpose) to create many, many mailing labels for a CONNECT mailing that needs to get out super-soon.  I don’t know how to do this, nor do I know how I should best build a new database to make mailing other organizations easier in the future.  What I do not want to wind up having to do is to type all of these contacts twice, once in a new database file and once in a Word doc or something else so I can do the labels.

2) Lobster mushrooms.  I got a beautiful bag of dried ones from the forgaged edibles folks at the farmer’s market on Sunday, but I’ve never used this particular type before.  I was thinking about a smoky, mushroom-garlic-coconut milk sauce, or maybe a lovely barley soup, but I’d love some other ideas, especially if you’ve cooked with these before.

Last night, I decided to stay home rather than go to the Mariner’s game with Mark.  This was because:

a) I knew I was going to get whacked with cramps any minute

b) I really wanted to watch the debates, and

c) the Mariners suck so much that I always get in trouble for cheering on anyone who finally hits a freaking ball  — no matter which team does.

I put on some comfy jammies, grabbed a big bottle of wine and settled in on the sofa with the pug.

She didn’t seem particularly interested, which really bothered me, so I explained to her that, “We could lose even more of our rights!  Well…maybe not you…wait a minute, maybe you, too!  McCain and Palin don’t give a hoot about animal rights, you know.  They’re shooters…maybe even little tiny pugs like you when they run out of bigger critters and other people they decide are animals to shoot at!”  Sofia jumped into my lap, looking very concerned, and I felt bad about freaking her out.  “Don’t be scared, I’ll protect you, but seriously: this is important.”

She let out a snurf of relief, and was more attentive henceforth.  I took dictation and have transcribed some of her more notable responses for you.

• As McCain is talking about cutting pork-barrel spending when his VP is a fine example of doing it, Sofia cocks her head, and turns around and looks at me, her eyes big.  I know, little dog.  I know.

Of course, she may have just heard the “pork” part.

• Sofia shakes her head at Repubs talking healthcare.  We huff together at the cute idea that we can all just go choose our doctors here in lalaland.

• For the most part, talk of finances bores her.  Clearly, Sofia is secure in her financial status, which is profoundly foolish, since that’d be my financial status. However, when environmental discussion comes up, she perks up her ears. She’s an environmentalist!  Who knew? Good dog!

• When Obama is talking about assuring higher education for everyone, I realize I have never asked Sofia if she wants to go to college.  So, I ask.  “Hey Sof: college, or home on the sofa?”

Crap.  She interprets this as me offering her a treat.  I must have used my wanna-treat voice.

• Talk of terrorism causes the small-but-mighty pug to leap atop the cat-scratched loveseat and devotedly guard the front window.  If they come for us, she will kill them with cuteness and a painful ankle-nipping.

• H: What do you think about Iraq and Afghanistan?
S:  (head cock, offended snurffle, looks to Obama)
H: You going to ask Obama?
S: (even more deeply offended look) She communicates that not only does SHE understand what’s going on, she’s pretty sure Obama does.  But probably not as well as she.  Gawd.

• McCain makes Sofia snore.  Me too.  But she says likes his floppety face.  We have a serious discussion about how you can’t judge a jerk by their jowls, or think that someone is okay just because they kind of look like you, only hairless.  I think she gets it, but we may need to revisit this talk for her safety.

• Invite them over for tea…snrf.  Obama made a funny.  This dog is easy to amuse.

• I remark that McCain looks constipated.  Sofia concurs and suggests he needs more whole-grain fiber in his diet.  Maybe a biscuit.  Which maybe she needs herself right now, come to think of it.

• Boy, Henry Kissinger is getting a looooooot of phone calls tomorrow, and I think McCain’s face is going to be even more pink.  That’s what Sofia says, anyway.

• She gave McCain a gold star for mostly passing his self-assigned geography quiz.  She says,  “Oooh. Snrf.”

• Now that there is spaghetti and not-meatballs in front of me, Sofia could give a rat’s ass about the election.

H: What do you think?
S: Spaghetti.

A little later…

H: He will take care of veterans?  Riiiiight.
S: Spaghetti.

H: Oh,  that was really lovely.  I’m not being facetious: that was good stuff about –
S: SPAGHETTI.
H: I give up.  Oh, good, so did they.

Just a reminder: September 25th is the last day to submit public comment on the proposed HHS regulations which are not only superfluous, but more importantly, would limit access to reproductive healthcare (and other healthcare) services in the U.S., particularly for those who already have the greatest limitations to care.

It’s so important to have public comment on this, so if you have not done so yet, take a few minutes tonight and be sure to get something in, even if it’s just a very polite way of saying “Go to hell.”

Here’s mine:
I am writing to urge you to stop efforts to block women’s access to basic reproductive health services.

I understand that the proposed regulations that the Department of Health and Human Services released on August 21, 2008 expand existing law to allow more health care providers and institutions to refuse to provide needed care.

As written, the regulations could allow institutions and individuals — based on religious beliefs — to deny women access to birth control and permit individuals to refuse to provide information and counseling about basic heath care services.  Moreover, they expand existing laws by permitting a wider range of health care professionals to refuse to provide even referrals for abortion services.

For those of us working in healthcare, the onus is on us to choose a clinic or an area of practice where we know we want to provide the healthcare services offered to clients, and which we feel is in alignment with our personal values or religious beliefs.  It should not be on those seeking needed health services.  It is our responsibility — and we have the greater agency as as workers — to seek out the work we want, and leave the work we do