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July 8th, Two Thousand Four: Just coming up for air. And yes, I know, this page is scrolling
like a mother, but that'll just have to do for now.
One more week. I have one more week until the insanely large first
draft of the book is due. I need to be finished with all the writing
save the intros and the summary by Saturday, at latest, so I have
plenty of time to sit through with the whole thing printed, read
it start to finish, and edit the stuffin' out of it, add the footnotes
where needed (Laurel, some of that task may be sent to you, be
warned), and take a gazillion little files and make them one big
one. And let her go. To a far more capable editor than I.
(I'm actually one of the few writers I know not made generally
nervous or apeshit by the idea of someone else editing my work.
I have a great love of editors, especially good ones, and I have
yet to see my work anything but improved in the hands of one.
I can be a terribly verbose person, and it's my number one pet
peeve in my own writing -- that, and I can sound like I'm writing
political leaflets a lot of the time. I was saying to The Girl
last night that since they have all those appetite suppressant
pills, I don't understand why there aren't word suppressant pills.
Like, makes you 1/3 less wordy. I want them. Point is, sending
it off to the editor to be read and reworked isn't at all traumatic
for me, save a few concerns about content issues, like addressing
d/s VERY little, I feel strongly about.)
My mood is fine. I know this, because I keep getting told this
with some measure of shock and awe. 'Course, I handle crises and
pressure very well, always have, oh happy residue of tragic childhood
and adolescence. Of course, I'm also too knackered to get my knickers
too knotted at this point (wow, lookit all those K's...). Two
weeks ago, sleep was averaging around six hours a night. Last
week it got down to about four, and at this point, I'm both working
so much and have insomnia so bad that last night, I almost wound
up with two. Instead it was five, since the minute I put the water
on for coffee at seven after lying awake watching the light come
up for two hours, I passed out again. Oy. I had really hoped to
get started early today. So it goes.
Some of the insomnia is due to the always popular arrival of Charlatan
Syndrome. Y'know, the chattering little voices that chitter and
snicker with the "Who do you think you are? You SO can't do this. Where's your
special piece of paper, missy? Where's your fucking college degree,
for crying out loud? Hell, where's your doctorate? You're a poor,
slutty, communist, buddhist, alternative-educated dyke with naked
pictures of herself everywhere, no one camp likes you, and you're
breaking too many rules. They are going to Eat. You. Alive."
I get over it, I do. I was trying to convince myself over the
past few days that I really didn't NEED a detailed birth control
options section because, yanno, they can just ask their doctor
about that, and by the time the book comes out, it'll be out of
date already anyway, and if most of them aren't going to use it
right, what's the bloody point, and -- yeah, it was a good try.
It really was. So, whe I inevitably sat down last night to work
on finishing it and found my hands flying over the keyboard for
an hour, explaining all of these methods in detail without looking
at any of my notes, without leaving out a single thing, I discovered,
checking it afterwards I felt better. I mean, if there was a sex
ed game show, I could breeze through it blindfolded, with my hands
tied AND while throwing some round kicks. But I do have to tell
myself lately, a lot, that I'm not a charlatan, that I do know
what I'm talking about and I do know how to do it. I have to remind
myself I've been an educator now, of various types, for 15 years.
And that Scarleteen is a bigger classroom than any other teacher
has likely ever had. Given, it's not the same as teaching Kindergarten.
However, when it all comes down to it, how big is the difference
between, "Hey babe! I see you've just sneezed and it got a little messy.
Lemme show you how you can use this tissue, okay?" and "Hey babe! I see you've just had sex without using any sort of
barrier and are now supremely freaking out. Let's talk about how
you can use condoms, okay?" Really, it's astonishingly similar.
(Yes, even with adult sex ed. I could write a whole book in and
of itself on how teaching Kindergarten and teaching sex ed are
so similar so much of the time, it's eerie. maybe that'll be my
next one "Mucus and Me: How Montessori Made Me an Excellent Sex Educator.")
In any event, I think self-doubt is part of the not sleeping.
A coffee intake twice as high as usual probably isn't helping,
either. Hmm.
I've got stuff for y'all: photos from pride this year, a few lovely
pictures of the easy bliss of fresh fruits and veggies from participating
in an independent farm share this year. I got stories, boy do
I got stories for you. But all that's going to have to wait until
a week or so from now. The plan is that after I finish, the Summer
O'Rain here will miraculously end, and I will be found at the
lake, on a towel, with a book and a beer for a week solid. The
fact that I still have no paying job is just something that's
going to have to wait, because I am seriously fucking tired. I
want this to be over: I am SO done with it. But even being sick
to fucking death of this book right now is unlikely to prevent
me from having severe postpartum after I get this draft out, and
I figure if you're going to be depressed, better to do so at the
beach.
But I promise, I'll check in when I finish. People keep getting
worried, calling and sending concerned emails, and I love y'all,
but I'm finishing what looks to be about a 400 page book I had
barely six months to write. It's kind of a lot of work. But if
we know me, we know if there's one thing I can handle, it's a
lot of work. I'm okay. Fucking exhausted, very frazzled, crazy
as a mountain climber, often smelling less than fresh and looking
like I got dressed in my big brothers laundry basket, still avoiding
the section that got eaten, and very, very verbose, but okay.
Anybody wants to call Pizza Luce, though, and have 14" soy cheese,
garlic, basil and sun-dried tomato pizzas on bianca sauce, I'm
not arguing. Same goes for anyone dying to come clean my pad.
Just bring a biohazard suit. And your own tissues.
Eating disorders, birth control, sexual assault and yes, sexual
anatomy await me. Oh, and I still need a sodding title. No, not
kidding. |
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June 29th, Two Thousand Four: This was going to be a nice, happy soggy Pride parade entry.
Instead, it is a homicidal, hysterical barbaric yawp about how
very, very much I HATE AppleWorks right now because someohw, despite several saves,
it just ATE an entire section -- the sexual anatomy section for both genders,
which I perfected from 8 yesterday morning or so until midnight,
then from 8 this morning until 10. Which I made a thing of fucking
BEAUTY. Which I couldn't print out when I finished as I usually
do because I ran out of ink and am waiting for a delivery of some
more.
...so which appears to now be gone FORFUCKINGEVER, and which I have to redo, all the hell over again because someohow,
all that remains was the half-assed file with my notes.
I can't tell you how thrilled I was with that section and how
thrilled I was to be done, nor how much I have on my plate to
finish in the next week so I have time to edit. I had forty pages
to write today, at a minimum. Now I get to add another 25 to that
list, another 25 which I ALREADY FUCKING WELL WROTE.
It so seriously sucks eggs to be me right now. |
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June 23rd, Two Thousand Four: Today -- like every day at this point -- was supposed to be a
writing day. Then it was swapped for a paying landscaping gig.
Then we decided to do the landscaping gig that was supposed to
be for two days and four people, in ten hours with three people
yesterday. That's ten happy hours of deep digging for a gazillion
plants and trees in wet river silt, while being eaten alive by
mosquitos, my friends. I came home so coated in dirt when I took
my sandals off, my feet were black with white sandal straps. I
had dirt in my nose.
Suffice it to say, I woke up more than a little sore today. To
discover that my house was a total disaster, something you can
tend to overlook when during the times you're there, you barely
leave your desk. So, given I'm tired and made some bank yesterday,
as well as some commissions on new rentals in the building the
week before (FYI, any local readers who want a gorgeous apartment
smack in the best part of Uptown, toss me a line: we have two
more open still), today has turned into a day off instead, mostly
for cleaning the crap outta this sty.
Well, kinda. It's also involved lots of my being incredibly silly,
which I'm wont to do when I'm stressed out and brain dead.
All morning, I desperately fought off the urge to put my skates
on in the apartment. Really, I don't normally rollerskate in my
house. I do normally put on music, some in very questionable taste,
and boogie by myself in my living room. And the music I put on
normally does include some things whose only value is pure nostalgia.
So, perhaps you might understand why then, the more stressed I
get, the worse the music gets, and the more I become convinced
it is the Best Music Ever. And the worse the music gets, and the
more convinced I am nothing so perfect has ever been written,
especially with a playlist this morning that looked something
like this:
- Sister Golden Hair - America
- The Things We Do for Love- 10cc
- With a Little Luck - Paul McCartney / Wings
- Jackie Blue- The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
- What a Fool Believes- The Doobie Brothers
- Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tennille
- Let 'Em In - Paul McCartney / Wings
- Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
- Don't Fear The Reaper - Blue Öyster Cult
- Baby, I Love Your Way - Peter Frampton
- I'm Not in Love - 10cc
- Never Been to Spain - Three Dog Night
- Mockingbird - Carly Simon
- Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (which is also the name of Sofi's squeaky
monkey) - Jim Croce
- American Pie - Don McLean
- Listen to What the Man Said - Paul McCartney / Wings
- Tell Me Something Good - Rufus & Chaka Khan
- Joy to the World - Three Dog Night
- When Will I Be Loved? - Linda Ronstadt
... the more I want my rollerskates.
(I spent some of the best times I can remember from my childhood
at the roller rink. We were so broke, there were few things we
could really do like that, but the roller rink was a plenty happy
place for the low-income bracket -- even my first little fledgling
job ever, at 12, was at a rink. There was one I could bike to
easily, skate laces tied together to hold them on my shoulder,
and sometimes spent every afternoon at. My favorite skates were
aqua sneaker-skates with yellow stripes: I even made teeny license
plates for them with my name on them, and my mother had sewn me
a matching aqua satin jacket, and everything. A couple years in
there were a couple of the happiest years I my mother have, between
my Dad and my stepfather, when she was single and dating, when
nights out always meant a laughing group of young nurses, nights
in I'd spend under their kitchen tables broadcasting my invented
radio show into my little tape recorder.
At the roller rink, you could watch the young couples being all
smushy, watch the little kids learn to skate and the big ones
posture, wonder about the occasional grownup, but best of all,
you could go to the rink with a piece of bubblegum and just skate
for hours, to silly mellow tunes with a cheesy power-drive undercurrent
to get your groove on to, and get totally lost in being happy
all by yourself. )
And so, by two this afternoon, I caved, and spent an hour in the
1970's roller rink of childhood that lives in my head. Here's
hoping the neighbors weren't home. My excuse is that it was raining
outside, should I need one.
I'm in the final stretches. And when I'm done, I can buy myself
a walkman and go to the lakes and rollerskate to as much 10cc as I wanna. Now, there's a reward. And the end of my credibility
as a person to be taken seriously, no doubt. |
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June 17th, Two Thousand Four: I need, need, need the soundtrack to the Muppet Movie. Because the internal "Movin' Right Along" soundtrack is driving
me insane. Fozzie does it so much better.
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| Today |
June 1st |
But, see, I am moving right along (see April). My deadline for the book was extended from July 1st to the
15th. I will be done writing it by the 1st (possibly even earlier,
I'm like a steamroller right now), from the look of things, but
what I would not have had time to do was to take a few days, preferably
in some sunny spot, and sit armed with red pens, highlighters
and post-its and edit the stinker. And it needs that. I need that.
I haven't been reading or writing from start to finish as I've
done this monster, so it'll be deeply satisfying for me to sit
down with my 500-page-jobbie when it's done and just read it.
(Have I mentioned that I got gifted with an incredible illustrator
for it? Check this woman out. I am so happy about this.)
It's funny, until recently I'd forgotten that when I get in my
groove writing, when it's a 24/7 endeavor, for all the stress,
it's really very enjoyable for me, and I can stay incredibly motivated
to write all day and much of the night, every day.
I was having a low moment last night. A scared moment, a deep
and abiding concern that what I'm doing with this -- what I've
done all these years with the young adult sex ed, the way I do
it -- won't be as revolutionary as I want it to be. I was feeling
frustrated, as I have been at certain points of late, that I have
to write this book in THIS culture, rather than a far better one
where it'd be a very different animal. Last night it was because
I'd been working on the gender chapter, and I found myself seriously
pissed off at the idea that there are young people for whom my
tiny five pages of gender roles will be the very first time anyone
has ever not only suggested to them that gender roles and status
aren't a natural given, but that they should be questioned and
challenged. I don't like living in a world where that's the case.
This stuff should SO not be news to anyone.
Then (bless you, Cheryl), a woman who runs a feminist community
I participate in posted this.
I always, always forget that Dorothy Allison is very good for
me, despite her real estate on my bookshelf; that her voice is
very familiar to me, it resounds very deeply given how many issues
we share, that she motivates the holy crap out of me. That visiting
Dorothy-ville is like visiting a better, truer version of home
with a capital H, where the windows are always open, even when
it's nasty outside.
That helped. A lot.
I so want this book to sell like hotcakes so that I can, for once,
get paid for what I do with SOME small semblance of a wage, and
afford to keep doing it. because in many ways, a lot is riding
on this puppy. if it tanks, I've realized I'm just going to have
to accept that I can't afford to keep doing what I do in that
realm, that I'll have to find a way to move on, or do it in a
much smaller fashion, do it as a hobby, not a job. And there's
something so incredibly distasteful and demeaning about calling
vital education a hobby, man.
But really, that need is secondary, however important and practical.
When I was researching part of the book, I was reading a study
which stated that over the last five years, an increasing number
of young adults have been voluntarily walking into clinics and
asking for STI screens, even without symptoms. Some BEFORE sexual
partnership.
For a fleeting moment, I thought, "Hey, I've been running Scarleteen for six years. We get about
9,000 readers a day anymore. Maybe I did some of that."
Maybe I did. And maybe I didn't. And it'd have been really cool
if the report said "An increasing number of teens have been walking
in and asking for these screens, saying that Heather Corinna helped
them know to do that." I have an ego like anyone else. It'd have
been nice, I admit. But it's par for the course, with most activist
work that the majority of us doing it aren't Martin Luther Kings,
Nelson Mandelas, Harriet Tubmans, Michael Collins', Sitting Bulls,
Gloria Steinems, Rosa Parks', Angela Davis' or Aung San Suu Kyis.
What we do is far smaller, less immediate and intense, or given
less notice. It's a given that most activists will both never
be all that known, if known at all, and that the results of what
they do will be not be immediate, easily tangible or identifiable,
nor credited directly.
Growing up with my Dad, one of the great activist invisibles,
I'm certainly not glad that he suffered as he has, and that all
of what he did caused so much disappointment and resentment in
him, but I am glad that the message was loud and clear that when
you do stuff like this, you have got to be okay with not being
credited, with being one drop in a pond of many, with potentially
never seeing the results of your labors.
So, I create smaller goals. For instance, my visualization of
late is that I hope someday I can find a copy of this book in
some garage sale and discover it has been completely used and
cherished by someone: that the pages will be ruffled and dog-eared,
some of them scribbled in and marked upon. I want to find a copy
with someone's name written in the cover, put there to try and
bind the book to them. I would be thrilled beyond measure if I
could someday meet a grown child whose parent told them about
me and the work I do. If someone who has been or is a hero to
me ever lets me know they appreciate the work I do, I'll be elated.
if this book gets banned somewhere, I'll grin like an idiot --
in this culture, at this time, that signals a real arrival for
me far more than selling copies. It means I'm doing something
revolutionary. I want to meet young women who came of age feeling
100% good about themselves, strong and able, sexually, in their
bodies, relationships and themselves. I want to know young women
who came of age able to say no easily and calmly, without having
to argue the point or defend it to the nines, and who were able
to also say yes gladly and happily. I want to feel like I can
have kids of my own who can grow up that way, without it being
only me giving them those messages, where I'm just one voice of
many supporting them in those things.
That's really what I want, more than book sales, more than any
acclaim or big notice. I want to help bring about change and revolution,
however small. Because the closer I get to finishing this -- which
is, in many ways, a giant summary and extension of all the work
I've done for such a long time, in education online and off --
the more I come to believe, very strongly, that a cultural shift
in the treatment of sexuality, a cultural change in the treatment
of young people and a positive change in their views of themselves,
especially in areas which are so challenging, like sexuality and
gender, could elicit some truly, truly amazing things. I want
to live in that world, in that culture, and do whatever I can to make it happen.
So, I'm exhausted, and I really want to be finished with most
of the hard work on this book very soon. I need some extended
down time, and I need to be able to have time and space to, like,
get a paying job so I don't wind up homeless. But I'm feeling
really good about it. When I go take breaks, to walk, to bike,
to box, to have a cup of coffee on my back porch (however grungy)..
(To do very, very silly things like this to relieve stress, however deranged. Short story is, on the first
floor landing of my building, a bizarre collection of small objects
has been growing, including the baby above, which I kidnapped
because nothing chills a person out like larceny and bizarre psychodramas
with small plastic objects.)
... to have dinners with friends, spend time with my girl, to
do the dishes or sweep the floor, and for the love of gawd, to
have some of the sex I write about so incessantly, I feel good.
I find it easy to clear my head without even trying, likely because
I know that in every other waking minute I am truly doing everything
I can that I know to be important, in a way that does really utilize
my unique gifts and skills. It's incredibly cool.
...and calling to me. Just finished the orientation section this
morning (which is approached to people of ALL orientations: it's
not the prototypical "queer section"), and need to go finish up
gender and then birth control before I help myself to a hefty
helping of sunshine and fresh air with likely a swim and a bike
spin around Lake Calhoun, where I'll undoubtedly find myself still
humming with Fozzie like a complete dork.
Movin' right along, doog-a-doon, doog-a-doon... |
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June 11th, Two Thousand Four: My. Brain. Hurts.
It's not like I haven't done the exact sort of writing I'm doing
now for years, because I have. Years and years now, really. But
not in such an immersed fashion. Usually, the teen sex ed work
is also mixed in with photo work, with personal and adult writing,
with a freelance job now and then writing promotional copy or
doing design.
In many ways, being this immersed, all at once, in an onslaught
of teen sex issues is like being whacked with puberty all over
again, something I really would have preferred not to revisit.
It never fails to amuse me when, every now and then, some Scarleteen
user is surprised at how "old" I am, and muses upon whether or
not I miss being a teenager, and wouldn't I like to be back there?
Not for a million dollars, a house full of pug puppies, or a date
with Angela Bassett, kid. Yikes.
The last week has been incredibly intense. I'm only clocking about
five hours of sleep a night, and save the occasional break to
bike, box, walk the dog or dot the dishes, my brain is ticking
and my fingers typing from about 8 in the morning until 10 at
night.
Last night, by the time I got to bed, I was so tired that when
my eyes couldn't focus on the words in the book I was reading,
I looked back at the whole foot away the light switch was, and
know I sincerely meant to turn it off and put my book away, but
I woke up this morning with all the lights on and a book lodged
under my left knee.
'Course, last night I was so loopy tired that a single glass of
wine and a mere hour of downtime resulted in my grooving around
in my living room with The Doors blaring, then grooving around
in my bedroom with some toys for a giant whackoff session. I confess
I was even looped enough that I laid in bed for a little while
completely fascinated with the double dildo I had in hand (the
Feeldoe) which can be worn without a harness. I was using the
longer side earlier, but when I was spent, flipped it around and
sat tickled at the novelty of having an (okay, giant purple, but
still) dick with, literally, no strings. I even batted it back
and forth with my hand chuckling for likely far more time than
I think I did. Told you this is making me revisit puberty. A puberty
that isn't even my own, no less. Merde.
(It's very funny when I've gone a while without talking about
sex here on a personal level -- it makes it all seem a bit scandalous,
and given how long I've worked in sex and sexuality, having it
seem at all risqué at this point is pretty comical.)
So, over the last week I have a foothold on the chaps on intimacy,
legal issues, the not-quite STIs (mono, UTIs, bacterial infections,
etc.), safer sex on an emotional level, sexual reciprocity and
sexual self-esteem.
I finished the chapters on DIY sexual healthcare, the revision
of the sexual readiness checklist, the chap on how to talk to
partners and parents about birth control methods, the one talking
about that the "it" in "doing it" can be, dealing with problems,
disappointments or the over-hype of heterosexual intercourse,
and the extensive section on conception, pregnancy, delivery and
miscarriage finished.
Here's a fun brain teaser: explain conception through delivery
using little to none of ANY language or terminology in heavy rotation
in EITHER the pro-life or pro-choice lobby. Lemme tell you how
much fun THAT was.
There are good things and bad things about doing this book. Beyond
the part where I try to write a book of around 500 pages in less
than six months without an income. I'm talking about intellectually,
politically, emotionally.
For instance, while I have occasionally kicked myself in the ass
for doing a book which includes both genders -- I know it's needed,
but it's made for WAY more work, and taken a lot more time than
it would have were it only for women -- I've also found some bennies.
Like the fact that I can effortlessly take the sexism out of a
lot of issues which otherwise are either presented in a very sexist
way (either by inclusion or omission), or which carry sexist connotations.
Like, for instance, talking about respecting a partners limits
and boundaries, as well as when they say no. All too often, we
ONLY see that sort of talk directed at men. Like talking about
casual sex issues very frankly and plainly, with no more or less
weight than romantic relationship sex: something that generally
just isn't done in books for young women, presenting them ALL
as only ever wanting the violins to play. And that's really very
cool, and it feels very revolutionary.
Same goes double for the book being for both straight and queer
readers. You'd be amazed, really, at how easy it is to do that,
and at how beautifully that equalizes sex activities in terms
of the import of a given one being completely individual. At how
nice it is that it includes things for the whole spectrum that
often get left out when those groups are divided. How many books
for queer youth explain pregnancy, for instance, rather than assuming
that queer kids aren't interested, that it isn't relevant, or
that they don't want to think about it, too? How many sex books
for straight kids include serious evaluation and exploration not
just of orientation (and when they do, only presenting orientation
in a context of GLBT) but of gender? It's pretty damned neat.
That sort of stuff is also cool for me personally, because it
lets me see that in many ways, I have become the sort of person
that BOTH my parents wanted me to, in the best ways. While I came
of age well before diversity awareness and all that, given the
way I grew up and the areas I grew up in, I had it without even
trying, and my folks both made a point of instilling it in me.
It's pretty excellent to tangibly see that I'm championing the
sort of human rights issues and approaches that were so vital,
especially to my father, without grandstanding or being preachy.
It may be possible that I've found a better, albeit possibly smaller
and quieter, way to do what he was trying to do, involved in various
movements. And I'm doing it all in the context of the preventative
healthcare, on all levels, that is my mother's big mission in
life, what she works her ass off for night and day.
Of course, with some of that work comes some anger and frustration.
It's amazing to me how ageist so many approaches, laws and attitudes
towards young people are, and how blind most adults are to it,
as well as how much it's tolerated. As I write certain passages,
I'm hoping that at least some of the readers -- without me pointing
it out directly -- will be able to see that, and get angry, and
then get active. I can't tell you how much information on young
adult pregnancy I've found that is chock-full of an approach towards
their pregnancies that literally states it is a disease, an epidemic,
even though many ARE of childbearing age, healthier to be pregnant
than many of their far older counterparts, and historically, at
the age most people have always started parenting at. Or how many
people who claim that teen pregnancy is traumatic and must be
curtailed are the EXACT same folks giving them misinformation
on conception, or wanting to block their access to birth control
or emergency contraception. Or the patronizing tone used to talk
with them at all. I have to finish up the short chap on sexual
healthcare discrimination today, and I know it'll leave me steamed,
because I'll have to remember all the stories I've heard over
the years of doctors refusing to start basic GYN exams for young
women who want them, because they're under 18, or not having intercourse
so "don't need them yet." Stories of birth control and EC flatly
denied or replaced with lecture, of young lesbian women being
told that while they may want STI screens, they don't need them,
or barely-out and not-yet-dating young gay men being lectured
about AIDS. Grrrrr.
It just strikes me that in a different country, a different culture,
this book would be so different. So much of it wouldn't even be
needed. And the more I work on it, the more I'm reminded of all
of the things supported in our culture, gone unquestioned, that
contribute so profoundly to so many sexual problems, relationship
problems: the lack of touch and value of touch, the increasingly
sedentary nature of most lives, our shit healthcare system, the
horrible ways many teens are schooled by everyone around them
to NOT take care of their bodies or to loathe them, acquisitiveness
that's totally out of control, the lack of autonomy given to people
of an age where it's needed most, how very much one group's value
system lords over all of us and poisons so much.
I'm so ready to move to another planet these days. I mean, Reagan
dies (and yes, I did think he surely must have died already, so
was surprised), and little ol' idealist me thinks, "Fantastic. Now, maybe in a couple of years, since he's dead and
can't speak for himself, everyone else involved in the near-genocide in Central America in the 80's will let all that come to light and try to recifty
it since they can just all blame him." I did NOT think "Oh, surely he will now be getting a spot on
Mount Fucking Rushmore." Sometimes, it just really doesn't pay to leave what I'm immersed
in right now and visit the more of world outside, I tell ya.
Which is why the healthcare discrimination chap should probably
wait a little bit, and I should do something my politics and pissiness
can't color, like say the chap on dealing with breakups, or the
one on oral sex. |
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June 4th, Two Thousand Four: So far this week? The orgasm and sexual response chapter, done.
And a pox upon everyone out there in the world who has exaggerated
orgasm, especially female orgasm, in the media, and those who
have given it SO much PR, to the exclusion of everything else,
that writing that chapter meant navigating around or filling all
the potholes made by all the hype to put it back in a realistic
context while still just trying to give all the information plainly.
Given the medical crisis we're just coming out of over here, I
don't wish pox upon anyone lightly.
Sexual fantasy chapter, done. Chapter putting ideas about soulmates
and "forever" into perspective, done. Introduction to the chapter
on making the decision to be sexually active, done. Discussing
birth control methods with partners and parents, done. On today's
roster? The abortion chapter, the sexual anatomy and physiology
overviews, and some work on the porn chap, the chap about sex
and the law, and the gender section.
It's been a very productive couple of days thus far, and I need
to keep it up. Thus, I also need to write a couple editors wanting
to get involved with me and see if there's any way they can sit
on their projects for another few weeks, because I just don't
think I'm capable of doing anything else during this crunch time.
This is made crystal by the mere fact that the minute my mouth
opens anymore, I notice everyone else being prepared to be drowned
out by an endless tirade about gender and youth politics, crappy
adult depictions or interp of youth sexuality, the challenge of
coming from a feminist perspective to issues which most youth
have had presented in an incredibly sexist way, blah blah book
this, book that, book book book blah de blah.
I swear to gawd, when I'm done with the first draft of this fucker
at month's end, my brain is going to be reduced to a pile of rubble
incapable of discussing anything but the weather and Buffy.
Becca provided a godsend this week in the form of passing on her
old hybrid bike, so yesterday, after working nonstop from 6 AM
(on four hours sleep) until 2, I was able to jet off and spend
an hour spinning around Lake of the Isles in the sun. Due to money
and time constraints, I haven't been able to box much at all lately,
and a hyperactive cookie like me doesn't fare well without a good
sweat pretty often, so that was insanely helpful. I expect to
revisit the experience this afternoon, possibly with a quick stop
at the Wedge.
When The Girl first started getting very ill a couple weeks back,
pre-hospital, I stopped by to get some things to work on getting
her well, and discovered that Sonny's here makes a chocolate raspberry
sorbet. Which is the Best. Thing. Ever. In. My. Mouth. Given all
of the lovely things that have been in my mouth in my life, that's
saying something. But it's true: it's like those dark chocolates
with the raspberry filling vegans can't have anymore, all melty
and cool in your mouth. I ate a third of the stuff in one sitting,
which is unheard of for me. I need MORE.
Last night, my girl and I took a walk from her apartment to the
movie theater downtown to see The Day After Tomorrow. I've said this before, but I just don't know what it is about
a good apocalypse that seems to cheer everyone up (though I didn't
sleep so well: plane crashes and death by freezing are the happy
partnership of two of my biggest phobias). But it did again pose
the eternal question as to what the plural of apocalypse is, as
well as cementing the notion of AST: Apocalypse Standard Time.
In AST, time either runs with incredible slowness -- as in, people
can outrun a wall of moving water from the Atlantic which is visible,
and several stories tall -- and at the same time, other events,
such as the full apocalypse itself, is always massively accelerated.
In other words, the people within it get long, stretchy time to
suffer, save the world and themselves in, while everyone watching
gets way less time. It'd be very helpful right now in trying to
finish this book if I could be on AST.
Without being unduly crass, I'd really, truly like to get laid
this weekend. Because of the extended and extensive illness, the
hospital stay (which SO was on AST), and my baby being on the
mend now, and my being out of my mind with the book, it's been
unduly chaste around here the past few weeks. I have this beautiful
box of purple gloves she swiped from the hospital for me, and
they keep looking at me, all empty, flaccid and sad. They want
some action. The safer sex chapters are already done, so I can't
even placate them with those.
Hmm. But I could give them some airtime if I did the manual sex
section today.
Yep. We've clearly reached critical mass. I'm over here trying
to figure out ways to make inanimate objects happy on my behalf.
Oh boy. |
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June 1st, Two Thousand Four: If all goes well, on this date one month from now, I'll be writing
that I finished the huge, initial first draft of my book and am
plopping the fucker in the mail, right on deadline.
Hopefully, that'll happen even if all DOESN'T go well, because
lemme tell ya, of late, I'm fairly hesitant to use that phrase.
And yet. This puppy clearly wants to get written, because I'm
only a little bit behind where I expected I'd be with this at
this point, despite, since I finalized the contract in November,
the following additions to my usual frenetic life:
• The loss of all my primary income via major advertisers at Scarlet
Letters, to the point that by now, I'm almost entirely reliant
on my teeny savings.
• The stress of knowing that the minute I finish this book, I
am going to have to look for any kind of work I can get like a
rabid maniac, or find ways to sell a whole lot of stuff (prints,
clothes, plasma, whatever) or be in Really Deep Shit.
• Really shitty ex-lover crap to a degree I didn't detail or express
here, nor do I have any plans to, ever. Really shitty friend drama
on a few accounts which also went largely undocumented, and some
not-so-shitty friend crises to boot.
• The loss of my major computer system, and the struggle to replace
it via purchasing a new one on aforementioned shit income.
• Qwest DSL. If you're local, I need say no more. If you're not,
there aren't words to adequately describe the circle of hell which
it was.
• The world and their diet drama, body image madness, conflicts
with women, sexual imagery and pornography, war-mongering and
all of the other ten million things that irritate the holy fuck
out of me, especially when I'm this stressed and thus, have no
filter and internalize everything.
• A new and fully unexpected romantic relationship, filled with
giant swells of NRE, bumps in the road, the requisite post-honeymoon
settling in, joint unemployment and the icing on the relationship
cake with the recent totally freakish, terrifying week-long possibly
life-in-peril, my girlfriend looks like a leper and would be burnt
at the stake did she have what she does now two hundred years
ago hospital debacle.
• Two dinner parties, one open studio, several freelance photo
sessions, two gallery showings, two insanely involved birthday
fiestas.
• Taxes.
• Having my mouth bitten in half by a pit bull (and thus proving
that all those gonzo porn stories which involve a few lesbians
and a dog don't always end the way they say).
• A swell en masse character attack at the Ms. boards.
• One massive panic attack which led to me having to cancel an
incredibly prestigious speaking engagement I wanted to do really
badly, several bouts of the blues and a whole lot of freaking
out in general, mainly about money, about the book and my ability
to write it, and life in general, with super-special bone-shaking
nightmares included, as an added bonus.
• Endless building issues and tenant needs.
And yet. It's still getting written, at the overall pace I expected.
Told ya: this baby WANTS to get done. Otherwise, there is no way
in hell any of it would be at this point, given the environment
it and I have had to work in.
That said, over the next month, you're likely to go stretches
without hearing from me, and chances are good you'll maybe see
one photo update between now and then, if that. My usual work
pace with any project is start slow, and build to the big finish.
Which means that the closer I get to a deadline, the more work
I pack in, with that intended from the start, because I work best
under pressure. So, the last two weeks of this month, it's highly
likely I will go days without sleep and need to be force-fed by
visitors to the asylum which is my home office.
(But see? Progress. Not so bad for a month and a half. Red is
finished chaps, yellow half-done, green chaps with a start or
notes.)
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| Today |
Mid-April |
The Girl is recovering well, for all concerned parties. And the
suspicion is -- dig this -- that the reaction she had was likely
a reaction to something as simple as aspirin, tylenol, or OTC
flu medication. She's following up with GP, dermatology and allergist
visits and rest at home. I'm following up, unfortunately, with
the culmination of two days of total catatonic slackerhood and
a slight hangover from too many Coconauts at Psycho Suzi's last night with Becca. And still waiting on a sink repair so
I can do my bloody dishes -- the hot water is back, but somehow
getting it back meant I lost all but drizzles of any water in
my kitchen, now. But have assembled the chapter bits I worked
on on the laptop in the hospital into the main systems index,
printed out a pile of research to wake up and read tomorrow before
embarking on one seriously large book writing bunch o'days.
Which is why a freshly made bed, a snuggly pug and a few smelly
candles now require my attendance. |
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May 30th, Two Thousand Four: They're releasing my sweetheart later today.
Seems enough tests finally came back that this has been diagnosed
as AGEP, or acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis, an incredibly
rare viral or drug-induced allergic reaction. For which there
isn't treatment, it just needs to run its course, so there is
no sense in having her have to wait it out in the hospital, rather
than at home, as it isn't infectious or contagious, and over the
last day, her heart has gone back to normal, as has her breathing.
Apparently, their main guesses as to what caused this are either
a basic flu virus, and/or Tylenol, Aleve or Remeron all of whom
have incidences of this associated with them. Suffice it to say,
she will never again be taking ANY of them, has some follow-up
visits with the allergist, her GP and then the dermatologist to
take the stitches out from all the biopsy sites. Interestingly,
they're treating the skin naturopathically, with a simple vinegar
and water solution, and she may even permanently scale down her
other meds, treating the depression and anxiety as it crops up,
rather than as a constant with a huge pile of medications (and
the natural medicine loyalist in me shouted hooray). She'll still
be recuperating and taking it easy at home or here for a bit.
In a word, it sounds like she is going to be okay and over this
soon, and is out of the big, scary woods at this point. I don't
need to say what good news this is, and what a huge relief.
I still have yet to get a shower. If you take a big breath in,
no matter where you live, you can smell me. Seriously.
Everyone has sent me such lovely letters and good wishes, and
thank you, thank you, thank you. More later -- for now, have to
get some clothes on that aren't boxer shorts and get over there
to get her the fuck home to her kitty, her own bed, and her life. |
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May 29th, Two Thousand Four: Morale is not what you'd call improving over here.
There's just no hope in sight of my girl leaving the hospital
or getting any better, and knowing that a holiday weekend means
she's likely to be left to lie there with STILL no actual treatment
or diagnosis, without any of her normal medications at least through
Monday isn't helping her mood or mine. Getting moved to a private
room for fear of infecting others (though no one has accepted
it is an infection) isn't helping, and the idea that this is infectious
is making me paranoid as hell: I've been feeling my glands 24/7.
Having to bug nurses again and again for the small helps she has
been prescribed -- like a bland cream to soothe her discomfort
topically -- isn't cool. Having a gazillion doctors, none of whom
appear to be communicating amongst themselves at all isn't good.
The next asshole asks my honey, who cannot move her mouth at all
now without pain, for her whole history and backstory is going
to get whacked in the face with her fucking chart.
My building has had a boiler problem since yesterday. I want a
fucking shower so badly, I'm about to walk out naked onto my back
porch and stand in the cold rain with a bar of soap.
After a day for myself yesterday -- really, actually, that's a
joke. Save the two hours I was getting my hair done, my day involved
a million phone calls, tending to the animals, doing laundry,
trying to clean, showing an apartment I'd said I couldn't, but
the folks were sitting on the stoop, waiting, and had an appointment
afterwards they were already late for. Then I got to mow the lawn.
On a day when I couldn't take a shower because our hot water is
gone, something which still hasn't been repaired. I cannot describe
how badly I want a shower at this point, two days without one,
and feeling like I'm covered in germs. or how badly I would like
the phone to stop ringing with tenants telling me there isn't
any hot water, which I know, but can't repair, nor can I call
in someone because our usual handyperson quit. So, all I can do
is nag and beg for some fucking water in voice mail and email.
I even got French Bulldog puppy kisses yesterday afternoon, and
ran into our old roommate from when I first moved here, who I've
been missing like hell, but those things hardly made a ripple:
I couldn't keep the good of them with me, it all just dissipated
too fast.
Anyhow, after a not-really-day-for-myself, I went back to the
hospital last night armed with DVDs, a few little presents, and
had a pizza delivered in a vain attempt to be the cheer squad.
Watching her hide her face with a pillow when the pizza guy came
in nearly broke my heart. Having a nurse tell her she "was spacy,
and needed to be nagged and bugged for things like scheduled painkiller
doses, okay?" (insert big, stupid cheerful grin here) was enough
to nearly make me go postal. Umm, no. It's not her job to bug
you, it's your job to fucking remember to give her basic care,
you giant fluffy haired hack.
She's so miserable and there's so little I can do, and even doing
the things I can is becoming really difficult. I want her back.
I want both of our lives back. I want to be able to make plans
for things we'll do, to go take a walk together, to cook her dinner.
I want her not to have to hide her face, I want her to be able
to breathe and talk without it making her wince. I want the sight
of her to not hurt. I want to see her smile. I made the mistake
of making her laugh last night (I suggested that next time she
buzzed the nurse for the lone treatment for her which are icepacks,
she just deadpanned and asked for a little blow), which hurt the
hell out of her. Her mood is just awful, as anyone's might be,
and all the pain, frustration and stress of this is taking a major
tool on her, especially without any of her meds. She looks to
be hanging on my a thread, and seeing her hold back tears all
the damn time is making me crazy. I want somebody, anybody, to
tell us that at some point, she will get well and be able to leave.
I couldn't sleep last night. I was up until four, which sucks
because I haven't been able to train in forever, and even though
I really can't afford it right now, I was going to go and see
if they'd let me just pay for a single class, but I woke up late,
and then had to man phone calls about the friggin' water for an
hour.
She asked me to take a few photos last night, which I really didn't
want to, so that she'd have evidence of this, be believed about
the severity of this. Yesterday, I ran into a couple friends of
ours at Vera's, grabbing a cuppa on the way to my appointment,
and I do see what she means. I had to reiterate twice in describing
her symptoms that I wasn't using hyperbole, she really WAS coated
completely from head to chest and back with giant clusters of
yellow, oozing sores, to the point that you can barely find her
beneath them and she cannot move her face (and for med students
and aspiring laymen, here's a closeup of what we're looking at at this point now: really, don't look
if you're eating) . That she really is swollen up to the point
that it looks like her neck is pregnant. But then I looked at
the last set of photos of her, when she was well, and the tears
came.
It's getting to the point where keeping up the brave front, in
front of her, in front of everybody, is becoming really difficult.
Where not mentioning that I'm so stressed and tried and freaked
out about all of this, about all my own stuff, like not making
any money and being unable to work, is hard as hell. And her guilt
about all this care is equally difficult. She said last night
that when she got out of there, I should be ready for her to do
anything and everything she could to help me out (without my saying
anything since this all hit an emergency state about how much
stuff I am not able to do right now), and the hopelessness of
the whole thing just washed all over me. Not so much that all
my stuff is so backed up, and there really isn't shit anyone is
going to be able to do, but that for all we know, she may not
be well again for months. That the new job she netted which starts
in a week, which she was so excited about, she may not be able
to start or keep, and if that happens, it's going to be a Really
Bad Thing. That most of what I want someone to fix is how fucking
scared I am. How I just can't stop thinking that if I have to
live through another lover in my life dying, especially early
in a relationship -- that I can't handle it again. No, no one
has said anything about it going there, but it's insanely hard
not to hear mention of a few possible serious illnesses this could
be about, see your lover with wires everywhere and a face full
of seeping pox, see them clearly feeling utterly defeated, and
not think about that.
Ugh. I could go on here for days. It's not unusual for me to get
up my gumption and motivate myself by looking at stupid things.
I have to confess that of late, when writing about sexuality issues
and such, I go look at places like Fleshbot to remind myself of
how many stupid things people find fascinating, of how craptastic
and surface most approaches to human sexuality are, especially
when it comes to women, but this last week, if I dip into anything
like that, I just wanna smack someone upside the head because
it looks even more stupid and pithy than usual right now, and
that's saying an awful lot. Who the flying fuck cares about a
peek at some seventeen year old actresses nipple for crying out
loud? Have we not seen nipples before? have we not perhaps been
weaned from them until recently? Or ooh, ooh, oh boy, today's
new way to fetishize a particular group of women, just when we
thought we were running out! Who are these fucking people? Can
we sell them for parts? My sympathy for the users at Scarleteen
is even lower. While it's usually limited with some issues already,
I can't look at the boards right now, because one more girl who
comes in asking for a special exercise to make her bottom this
much rounder, her thighs that half an inch thinner, or wants to
lose those pesky three pounds that are ruining her life is one
too many. The next person worrying about their risks five acts
of knowingly unprotected sex later isn't going to get a warm reception.
Who are these people who write and blog on and on about politics
and current events, dissecting and cataloging them to such a degree,
that it's questionable why they even CARE about them at all, since
if they're bringing any emotion, or care for anyone other than
themselves, to the table, it's so deeply buried under all the
words, links and sound bytes you'd have to dig to find it? Where
do they even get the time? And why the heck am I so easily angry
at such stupid stuff, you know, besides the fact that displacement
is the bomb, and when you're stuck in an awful and totally blameless
situation apparently no one can control or make better getting
ticked off at nothing is like candy? Besides that.
(And I'm really, really hoping that my mother simply misunderstood
my message for her last week about my girl's health worries --
before it got to here -- because if, as it sounds in a voice mail
from a day back, we've somehow gotten back to the women I date
being "your friend," aliens truly have clearly taken over my world and the people
in it and I, for one, surrender willingly.)
Yeah, I'm feeling particularly pissed off that the world in general
today. And christ, I want a shower, and a phone that doesn't ring
for ten minutes wherein I have to apologize to one more tenant
about there being no water. I want a fresh pack of smokes and
a big, bland pot of stewed turnips, carrots and cabbage. Jaime
has an art opening tonight, but I just don't know if I'm up for
it. A dressup night out with Becca and gay boyfriends sounds divine
on the one hand, but on the other, it also sounds terribly exhausting
and depressing, knowing where my girl is at the moment.
It's still raining, so perhaps I should just go take a walk in
it, get some food or something. I'd perhaps feel a little cleaner
if I got wet, and there's something about being out in the rain
when you're upset, teary and feeling hopeless that just makes
for an awfully good match, like Mama Nature letting out a great
big sigh and saying "Yeah, me too, girl. Me too."
(If you're going to comment right now, a few requests. I just
am in no mood to be psychoanalyzed, told what I should or shouldn't
be feeling, called a whiner who needs perspective because yes,
I know I have tunnel vision right now, thanks much; told how to
boss doctors around, patronized in any way or well... anything
else that might or should give one a moment's pause to post.) |
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May 27th, Two Thousand Four (evening): I don’t know what it is about birds with broken wings always
showing up and requiring care and rescue when I’m caring for people,
when people close to me are in serious distress (or at this time
of year), like last year when Jane was here in the middle of some
of her hardest stuff ever, and now today.
Birds are not a totem animal of mine... or maybe the point is,
they are. I don’t feel like I like them all that much, or have
a strong connection to them, I don’t dislike them, and it’s possible
my extreme squick and discomfort about people keeping them indoors
as pets is because I do have a connection, one I wasn’t seeing?
When I was about 7 or so, I did used to run the pigeon hospital
and day spa under the El tracks in our neighborhood on the north
side of Chicago. The grocer next door let the muddied, hand-me-down
overalls with the patches and the broken strap safety-pinned,
ratty-haired little me use his plastic milk crates and give me
bread crumbs, and I’d set up down there in the asphalt and put
the hurt ones in milk-crate-cages. Great swoops of well birds
would come hurling around me when I scattered the crumbs, and
I do remember that moment each day being just magic: these giant
swirls of windy, flapping grey all around my head and hands. I
even tamed a few.
Of course, when you have an infectious disease nurse as a mother
at the time, you can imagine how thrilled she was about that endeavor
from a germ standpoint. I was practically boiled and basted in
Lysol before I could come back into the apartment the day my hidden
Sanitarium Columbiformes was discovered.
I came home from the hospital tonight around 8, and got Sofia
to take the poor dog who’s spent too many days alone now out for
a good walk, even though I felt ready to pass out. One of my tenants
with a big dog coming out pointed out I should “be careful” because
there was a pigeon with a broken wing near the other stoop who’d
been there all day.
Dude? You’re an immobile bird in a building full of dogs, I think
it’s pretty clear who’s the one needs be careful.
So, I looked, and lo, one flightless pigeon. I get really super-duper
excited about one more being to worry about today, and when I
just can’t contain it any more, I wearily ask a much more compassionate
tenant if she knows who to call about rescuing a pigeon. I figure
the rookery Jane and I took the hurt sparrow to may not be so
interested in pigeons. So, while she runs upstairs to make a call,
I follow the pigeon. I follow the pigeon after it gets scared
and decides to start walking, and after my neighbor practically
gets run over to stop a car from hitting it before going upstairs
to make said phone call.
Walking through the alley, the pug and I following it a decent
distance behind, some average thirtysomething J. Crew-sweatered
Minneapolis guy, says to me that looks like the pigeon he hit
this morning. I think he’s being a jerk and trying to be funny,
so I just walk on a bit. Turns out, he’s trying to be funny and
he is a jerk, and he was SERIOUS about hitting the bird and leaving
it without a thought. I know this, because after my neighbor comes
out with a box and we’re working on getting it in there so she
can take it to the humane society in the morning, he says he’s
already called them. Because he’s very important to those pigeons
over there on the yellow roof. He’s like, a big pigeon. He’s like,
the KING! So, the humane society says they’ll be here in a limo
any minute to take him themselves. Hard de har. Har. Har.
(Men of the world? Listen up: the tenant who didn't do boo about
the bird and this guy? These are the kinds of seemingly harmless
men out there giving you good ones the bad rap, without lifting
a finger, without even trying, while thinking they’re cute, and
why women like me listen to them and think, for a minute, before
I remember the good guys, that THIS is why women shouldn’t even
be allowed to date men at all -- well that, and that they might
miss out on the feeling of their hand deep in another cunt. I
digress. Find these guys. Blame them for your misfortunes. Make
them nurse the sodding pigeons until they beg and plead to change
a diaper or give the whole world a back massage and a perfect
soufflé just for a relaxing break, for the love of gawd. They
OWE you. They owe us all. Especially that pigeon.)
Anyway, we catch the pigeon. She tells he/she it IS a very important
pigeon because all beings are important. This has just become
my favorite tenant in our building, and yes, you bet your ASS
her leaky sink or window problems are henceforth getting fixed
before anyone else’s. I say I’d love to help her more, by taking
the bird to the rescue with her tomorrow, but my girlfriend is
in the hospital, and I just can’t, and I do hear myself apologizing
for being unable to help with something when I am obviously a
wee bit overextended. The look she gave me, the one you give to
the slightly insane, was likely justified.
But hey, you can help save a pigeon! she says. And she’s right, bless’er. It’s like the other day
when watching my girl’s cantankerous but charming hospital roomie,
Bea, finally get released after her heart surgery, slip into her
sneakers and walk out of that room on a new walker (with the flowers
I got her on a tray, yay!), I totally teared up. I wouldn’t leave
the room for fear of missing that moment: it was triumphant and
wonderful and I fucking well needed to see someone get better.
The Girl is not getting worse. But The Girl is also not getting
better yet. One set of visible symptoms left -- the giant red
and purple rash -- and was replaced by a new one: a gazillion
clustered, oozy facial, back and chest blisters. Lemme tell you
something: any of you ever has a partner who gives you shit (or
who you give shit to) about a favorite schlumpy t-shirt, a silly
haircut, pounds gained or lost, or special gifts from Our Lady
Gravity? You just look them dead in the eye, and you say “A face
full of seeping pustules,” and you tell them to shut the hell
up. Seriously. No one is going to love their skin in its normal
state like my girl is when she gets through this.
So many doctors have seen her, put her through so many tests:
she’s had so much blood drawn, skin biopsies, ultrasounds, CT
scans. You name it, she’s had it. And to isolate possibilities,
they took her off her medications. Anyone managing severe depression
or anxiety doesn’t need me to extrapolate what that adds to the
mix. And because they want to rule out drug reaction, they won’t
try treating her yet, with ANYTHING. She’s in pain and she’s scared
and unhappy and feeling like a total leper. I can’t even kiss
her: not because of what the stuff looks like, I don’t think,
because it’s not an issue -- getting infected, if this is infectious
and I don’t have it yet, is the issue. That and with all this,
she hardly wants to be kissed. Snuggling actually hurts her skin
right now.
She doesn’t really want any other visitors now, so it’s me all
day and most of the night. That’s okay by me, I’d feel awful not
being there as much as possible, but I’m scared too, and I’m tired
as hell, stressed out about all this, about her health, about
how she feels, about getting her the hell out of there, the mystery
of this, concern for my own health, as well as being unable to
work when I already have no income, about missing the peaceful
moments of my daily life. Partners , parents of family who live
with someone with a progressive illness that requires constant
care are fucking SAINTS, I tell you. I don’t know how they deal,
I really don’t. I’m in awe, always have been, but right now, all
the more so. This is hard, really hard.
I had an appointment for a trim and some streaks Wednesday which
I canceled, and rescheduled for tomorrow, not thinking she’d still
be in there. I hardly have the money, and the timing is awful,
but I have to keep it. I need the escape right now, the small
care, the self-indulgence, the total lack of importance of a haircut.
I need a breather; a slow early morning with coffee and a book
chapter to work on, my dog, cats and plants, open windows, that
may smell a bit pet-like, but also smells of geranium, marjoram,
lavender, cedar, patchouli and ground coffee and a total lack
of stale, recirculated air, and I need clean laundry something
ferocious.
I need some healing and care myself, even just a little now, before
I can give more healing and care to another.
So, here’s the riddle: if the broken-winged bird is a totem I
need to pay attention to, who is it about? Is the bird me? Or
is the bird those I care for? Or, and I’m putting my money on
this one, is the bird all of us, the whole cycle of compassion
and care as it should be or as it is? Is the bird -- with the
broken wing, injured by carelessness or disease, rescued by one,
nursed and healed by another who may or may not be able to fly
as he or she once did again, but who’d we hope will, and perhaps
must imagine will, even if we never know for sure -- the healing
or the healer?
Is what is so poignant and perfect that the bird is both all at
once? |
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May 26th, Two Thousand Four: I don't have a lot of time, but just wanted to give an extended
out-of-the-office warning and ask for good thoughts.
My girlfriend has been pretty sick for over a week now, to the
point that Friday saw us at Urgent Care (two, to be precise, since
one wasn't open yet, so they sent us on a nearly two-mile walk
to another, which had decided to close early that day for the
hell of it, so we got to walk all the way back), the whole weekend
was spent with me doing everything I could to care for her, another
Urgent Care Sunday night, then a doctor's visit yesterday morning
that resulted in hospitalization. Spent all day and night there,
save a dinner break and a ride from Becca to pick up some things
for my girl. About to jump in the shower and head over there for
the day today.
We don't know what's wrong. Unless something has changed this
morning and they haven't called me yet, neither do at least seven
different doctors after a million different tests (and no stress
there for someone who does have health insurance, but knows it's
really shitty and may not cover much -- how much do I hate the
American health care system again?). She's had a progressive hot
bumpy red rash that's coated her whole body, with bizarre large
purple stripes as well, trouble breathing, severe flu symptoms,
and as of yesterday, her pulse and blood pressure have been fluctuating
really erratically. It's incredibly scary to sit with doctors,
while your girlfriend is hooked up to IVs and cardiac monitors,
with them asking for answers about life support and living wills,
especially for someone who is 27 years old. I am scared to fucking
death.
So, until this is resolved, that's where I'll be. I'm a pretty
big believer in the power of lots of positive universal energy,
so if everyone out there could send some our way, I'd be really
grateful. I'll keep you posted if things change drastically either
way.
Update, May 27th: She's out of the woods in terms of things being as super-scary
as they were. They still don't know what it is, because they're
waiting for all the lab results from all the tests to come in,
but have narrowed it down now to either infection or an extreme
allergic reaction to one of her medications (or betweent them)
or both. They assigned her an allergist yesterday, who I spent
a good deal of time with and who is fantastic. And yes, when need
be, I've thrown my proverbial weight around when it comes to my
mother (doesn't mean anything to the world-at-large, but among
Midwest hospitals, she often has clout) and what I know myself,
but really, it's not been needed, it's a good hospital and there
are a LOT of doctors involvd here, because everyone is so mystified
(though she did just have to outright refuse the pregnancy test
-- given how Agnes of God her rash has looked, I understand them looking for mystical issues
like immaculate lesbian pregnancies, but still). If my own gut
feeling is right, I want a degree handed over to me, for the record.
But until they figure out what it is -- especially since while
some of her symptoms seem to be getting better, others are cropping
up, she's going to be kept in there, and that's where I'll be
much of the night and day. So, while I can work on the book on
the laptop there, I can't do much else, so if I owe you something
work-wise or personal (an email, a phone call) it's going to be
a while, and that's just how it goes. And that's that. I'm trying
to avoid reverting to my childhood behaviours deveoped when spending
half a life in the hospital growing up, but it's not easy. Thus
far though, I haven't filched supplies off the cart and tried
to backsell them to doctors and nurses black market in exchange
for money or lollipops, so I'm doing okay, all things considered,
in that regard (emotionally, I'm coping, gallows humour aside
-- it's hard, especially since I have some heavy baggage when
it comes to losing people close to me, and because we both really
miss our lives right now, together and separately, given how long
this has gone on, both in and out of the hospital).
Thanks to everyone for all your well wishes. I really appreciate
them. |
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May 21st, Two Thousand Four: Before I give myself more time to write here, I need to get a
solid morning of book work in, which, save needing to let the
plumber into the building at 11, I should be able to manage. Stayed
up late last night housecleaning the office and living room so
my brain wasn't overwhelmed by mess and could instead be overwhelmed
by gender issues and Onanism instead.
But, I just really, really have to ask something. Yesterday morning,
after the Bowie show the night before in Milwaukee, the Girl and
I went out to breakfast with Gray at Smut N'Eggs in Madison. He'd mentioned the place before, and for sociological
reasons, I felt I needed to see a breakfast bar with porn playing
on a few screens while denizens ate their biscuits and slurped
their coffee. (He says in his journal he perceived me as not enjoying
it very much, but it's possible he's forgotten that I find enjoyment
in these Margaret-Mead-on-crack endeavors of mine. Just because
I'm analytical and argumentative doesn't mean I'm unhappy; he
should know that by now!).
For the record, there are a good handful of sexual activities,
fetishes or proclivities that I don't share or enjoy, but which
I can understand why others might without struggling too hard.
There are a few where I've had to struggle to get it, but I still
think I eventually have a handle on it. But yesterday morning,
I found myself faced (and really, I'm not trying to be punny),
with the one I just can't understand and have never been able
to.
Facials. Can someone please, please pretty please explain to me the deal with facials and bukkake? (And
how thrilled am I that that's now going to pull this page up in
google searches with those terms? Elated, I tell you.)
If it's a humiliation thing, then I get it (I can't say I dig
it myself, but I'd get it). But I've had people in the past tell
me that's not the draw, yet not let me in on what is. Gray suggested yesterday that I couldn't get it because of gender
issues, but you know, I don't see a great many women wanting to
leave fluids all over someone's face (or see such in mainstream
porn), so I don't think it's a matter of my just not being male
or wanting to sleep with men (and I did do so for many years,
and am still not getting it). As I understood it, historically,
bukkake is all about men ejaculating on women as punishment. Wikipedia reinforces my recollection that the practice "supposedly originated in the
feudal age in Japan to punish unfaithful women. A woman who had
disgraced her husband was first tied to a post in a kneeling position
and then forced to endure being ejaculated on by every man in
the community," so I'm likely on target with my feeling that it's
really all about humiliation (and am really squicked, and frankly
angered, in envisioning that scenario).
I'm likely going to sound like a total jerk, but from my perspective,
if I try and take it out of that context -- and that really seems
like a stretch -- all I see when I see that are women who look
like they have big boogers on their faces. Yes, I know ejaculate
is not booger, but it sure LOOKS like booger. (Ever had a lover
during sex get a big booger on their face? I have, and I gotta
tell you, it is incredibly hard, when so otherwise engaged, to
do that subtle thing where you mime nose-wiping. I have to confess,
I also found it really hard to stay turned on.) And yes, I know
as well as the next guy that consent is all the difference, and
a big one, between feudal punishment and a couple's private enjoyment.
However, I will say forthrightly that I have a very, very hard
time accepting or endorsing practices based in rape or those which
eroticize it, even in consensual play.
From what little folks trying to explain the appeal have given
me, it's apparently that it's different because ejaculate is special.
But from my viewpoint -- and given, most people don't spend a
lot of their day talking about body fluids and mucous membranes,
and most see the genitals as vastly different than other body
parts, which I don't, so I recognize it's different than the majority
approach -- it's a body fluid like any other: menses, saliva,
urine, female ejaculate, male ejaculate. No more or less special.
And when it's safe, I'm down with fluid bonding and fluids, but
aesthetically speaking, I don't want to be having sex with someone
with a face full of slime. Or a big booger on their cheek. Or
who is screaming "My eyes, my eyes!" And if it's a matter of very intimate sharing of fluids being
special, why is it more special on one's face then say, one's
thigh, and why would it be appealing to watch people unknown to
you doing it? And outside of ancient Japan, is the whole practice
life imitating porn?
It's possible y'all may be the wrong group to ask about this.
But in case there is someone out there in the nosebleed seats
who can explain the appeal of this to me, I'd be truly interested
(and I recognize that some of my words above may seem I'm on the
offensive, but even if that's so, I assure you that per usual,
there won't be any flaming in the comments here). As may be obvious
most of the time, I don't like not understanding things, and I
try and do what I can to do so when I think it's possible, even
if unlikely, that I'm bringing biases to the table. I'd be especially
interested in hearing the appeal from a woman's perspective, but
having it presented to me from different angles would be helpful.
Because I either just really don't get it, or I do, and for some
reason, those who enjoy it -- in person or depiction -- don't
want to acknowledge what it's really about. Which makes me even
more confused, especially on my first cup of coffee. |
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