The Cunt Diatribe

The Hours, Addressed to Me

2012-02-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

Could you write me
a poem in need
of quarterly translations
but never a new
edition, and give me something
of yourself to keep?

Could you whisper
a psalm into the palm
of my hand
to warm it
from the Icelandic
summer in which it longs
to belong and weep?

Could you sing
a familiar song
to yourself in the corner
of a rainbow-less somewhere
where I can overhear
your lonely melody?

Could you show
me the acoustic hollow
of your composer soul,
could your composition
play itself
over my skin?

Could you drift
across Lake Lucerne
and into me at its edge,
could you let yourself
come as a dry spell
of breath to cool
my Ethiopian winter?

Could you stay
not for me but
with me
during the after
hours, could you linger
inside me with your offering
of free time?

Could you give
me your fellowship,
could you give me
the hours
you once gave me to stare
brazenly into the face
of love-in-waiting?

Could the hours
give something
of themselves
that life itself could not
give, the planting
of a walking tree?

Could the staying
offer us a place
of our own, an in
into our own vacant room
or the sin
of coming home?

Could the drift
of snow cover
our exposed bodies, cover
the unrecovered under
cover of our lake
of cross lovers?

Could the show
start without us, could we walk
away and play
in the hollows
of our skins on the virgin
wood fiber?

Could the song
of our goodbye
be the dark side
of light and the light
of dark, and could the conflicted
song still be the song
of our tomorrow?

Could the whisper
be the surround
sound around your guarded
and garden heart, the muffling
of watery wailing sobs
of your siren sorrow?

Could the written you
be unwritten
and still as true,
as blustering, as dressed
in Aztec colors, and still
addressed to me?

The Wheel Wills Herself

2012-02-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

Tell me how to take
the wheel when the wheel
wills herself away
and tells me she won't
be taken, won't be mocked
won't be handled
won't be locked
the wheel will not,
cannot be forsaken

Tell me how to never
again be so mistaken
when the mistake tells
me she only ever wanted
the electric song
of wrong, what was a cold
shoulder, what was a home
from home, what was always
and never long gone

Tell me how to send
her a whisper when the whisper
only sounds to her
a scream she refuses
to receive the quiet
in me, the rotting
fruit in me, the spinning
top in me, the inability
to stop in me

Tell me how to let
go of what was
an oasis and a lifeboat
when the oasis in the distance
never flees in her resistance
to the child in need
to the mother who flees
to the woman who bleeds
in the desert of Euripides

Tell me how to find
the wellspring in her
faraway mind and its floral
valentine sublime
off the path beaten in rhyme
with sheets of rain
with tears without pain
with another day
that turns the corner
of the overture's refrain

Occult of Stars

2012-02-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

Occult of Stars

Is the tide as low
as the tide was high
set in silence
a kiss of light
lips on the water
lines across the surface
the crone sea
in her delight. Sun
and Moon never bid
farewell, the moon
cannot help but revolve
while the Sun,
prisoner to her station,
can only burn
and hope the angles
of her passion
shine on the darkest
features of her Earth
-bound Milky Way
mate, there are no corners
of her cosmo
consort's craters she
hasn't seen and lit. The sun cries
tears of plasma
-the stuff of herself
that cannot form
anything
of contrast. She can never shine
on every part of Earth,
Earth doesn't know
she gives herself
her own
seasons. The Moon has forgotten
there's a side of hir,
the blindside of hir,
that to Earth is unseen,
the bridge between
Earth and Moon
is ne'er crossed, the distance
between alien
spheres never changes,
the elliptic function
cannot be disrupted.
Sun and moon
were there in the midst
of the solar eclipse
the only power
possessed by Earth
was to watch and pray
away the bad omens
- a thing unknown
frightening
the deer-eyed dancers,
darting from bush
to bush, a world changing
in their view
for a time, an umbra
of envelopment, a civilization
unknowing but searching
inblindness
for meaning - did the Moon know
that the Sun made her
eclipse annular,
did she know when
they made first
contact, the occultations
of stars followed
by the diamond
ring, the edge
of obscurity
and the period of cease
fire, the trailing
of the trial of a spectacle
of touching, rapidity -
the new ruler
with new news
and new rules, Sun and Moon
only forget rarely
who orbits who,
only pure darkness
can face the fire eyes
of the sun, can handle
the melting
grasp of her fingering
rays, the lines of her
unbearable face. Earth can stand
to look the dim
lantern of Moon
in the eye, but can Earth stand
to see the alignment
of the universe in memory
of an eternal
eclipse. To whom
doth the twice-spun
Moon of moons
belong?

(Thank you for the image, which I found at: http://mountainsandoceans.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/grab-the-sun-and-some-moonlight/)

Will The Truth Please Stand Up

2012-02-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

I have nothing
I have nothing to say
I have nothing to say on the subject
I have nothing to say on the subject except that
I have nothing to say on the subject except that your truth is not my
I have nothing to say on the subject except that your truth is not my truth
truth my not is truth your that except subject the on say to nothing have I
that except subject the on say to nothing have I
subject the on say to nothing have I
say to nothing have I
nothing have I

truth           truth
is not,         is
your     my
nothing    say,
except        that
I                 subject

Abnormal Discussion Week 3: Academic Non Ability, The Street Smart Solution

2012-02-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

Question I

What is the difference between being "school smart" (doing well in school) and being "street smart" (doing well in the real world? Do you think a school smart person would be more or less likely than a randomly selected person to be street smart as well?

It easier to define "school smart" than "street smart," because school "smart" refers to an isolated location (school/academia) whereas "street" refers to any and perhaps all other areas of life. Making a comparison would be easier and more balanced if we were comparing one dimension of "street life" (to an isolated skill area associated with physical health or home life, for instance). How do we define "school smart" and "street smart?" I know the phrase refers to differences between academic success and non-academic success, but it's still hard to define success in either area. Academic success can be simply defined in terms of grade point average; however grade point average doesn't always give us an accurate or entire picture of academic success. If you were successful in one subject but not another, are you successful, on the whole, or not? If you do well in a course that requires only the minimum of you or you do moderately in a course that requires the maximum of you are you or are you not successful? How much of success is in how we define it for ourselves and how much of it is determined outside of ourselves (by criterion, grades and evaluations)?

Even if we determine our level of academic intelligence based an external appraisal (such as a grade point average), we still have to contend with the way in which we define non-academic intelligence. For the purposes of this discussion, I define non-academic intelligence very broadly as including life skills and practical knowledge. The interesting thing is that when we think of "school smart," we often think about a form of intelligence that includes the ability to retain information, relay information, successfully show a comprehensive understanding of various bodies of knowledge, express ideas in writing and orally, and think critically. Our concepts of "school smart" is likely to vary across the spectrum, but not as much as our concepts of what it means to be "street smart." "Street intelligence," or practical knowledge and survival skills (what might, perhaps, include personal hygiene habits, ability to take care of the many dimensions of running a household, having the ability to live independently or to live in and contribute to a community, to perform vocational tasks, to problem solve intellectually-and-physically) can include anything that contributes to the functioning of an individual. "Street intelligence" may even include or draw upon "academic intelligence."

It's also important to consider the context in which we consider differences between and among various forms of intelligence. It is likely that concepts and types of intelligence vary across cultures - in a ethnic community that values communal living, members of the community might break off into task groups. Each task-oriented group, whether selectively organized or randomly assigned, carries out an important function in a community-centered society. There might be individuals who care for children and prepare food (who take care of domestic tasks) in one group formation and individuals who procure food and shelter in another. There might be groups committed to interacting with outside communities and groups committed to organizing important community events. There might be a group of individuals or simply one individual whose task it is to provide spiritual guidance and support to the community. What if this person or group of individuals is expected only to carry out spiritual duties in the community while relying on other members of the community to perform roles in other specialized, functional groups - would this spiritual group or spiritual individual (such as a shaman) be considered "street smart?" Well perhaps not, in a Western sense. As a Western concept, the concept of "street intelligence" is only applicable to those who live within a society that upholds values of personal responsibility and independence. But even in Western societies, there are many communities that do not exist or function as individualists. In a community that values co-dependence, the development of a particular type of intelligence and group of special skills related to that intelligence would assist in the functioning of the whole. In this way, the focus of each individual would not be on individualism (the development and maintenance of their own individualism); it would, instead, be the focus of each individual to work with others within the community and to participate to their fullest in playing a functional role in the community.

The difference between a mindset of individualism (individualistic coexistence) and a mindset of communalism (community-oriented coexistence) determines to a large extent the way in which we consider differences between academic and non-academic intelligences. While on a simplistic level, it is easy to understand and claim that there exist in the world many different types of intelligences and skills. Is one form more vital and necessary than another? That depends on the organization and functionality of the community in which these intelligences exist. Across cultures, are there certain survival skills that each individual person needs? Each person needs to survive - needs whatever knowledge and skills allow them to survive (and hopefully) thrive in a given environment.

There certainly are people who possess a body of knowledge in one area and lack it in another. There are successful and brilliant artists who lack social skills. In such cases, the artists may have successful art-based careers and terribly vacant social lives. Their impaired social skills might be so benign that they are able to function successfully on the whole. Or their impaired function might be so prominent and debilitating that it interferes with their ability to function successfully on the whole (perhaps even preventing them from utilizing their artistic abilities in a meaningful and gratifying way). It depends on the individual just as much as it depends on the environment in which the individual functions. Based on this rationale, it is not likely that an academically intelligent person would be any more or less likely than any randomly selected person to possess other non-academic skills and forms of intelligence.

This topic is relevant and interesting, especially in light of the intelligence-centered forms of psychological testing that we read about in Chapter 3. In the chapter, Halgin and Whitbourne speak to the issue of the difficulty of defining "intelligence." The focus of the use of intelligence testing as a psychological assessment tool is on individual functioning. Intelligence testing might not consider as much the individual's role in the functioning of the community, but it might asses the individual's functioning as part of a whole community with certain standards and expectations of normal behavior and average skill levels. The concept of "street intelligence" sounds very similar to Charles Spearman's concept of "g" ( or, level of general intelligence).

Intelligence tests provide us with a standardized concept of intelligence, which is helpful when used for the purposes of clinical assistance, support and treatment. However, the standardization of intelligence is problematic in that it is confining and narrowing and might fail to consider alternative, non-mainstream forms of intelligence. This is highlighted in Halgin and Whitbourne's acknowledgement that computer scoring of intelligence testing does not account for the originality or creativity of thought (it does not consider the thought process behind the answer, it simply uses the answer itself as the determinant of intelligence. Psychologists, not the testing process itself, are responsible for considering factors outside (or behind) the testing process (such as emotional or psychological issues that are causing intellectual impairment or socioeconomic and ethnic factors that might be affecting the process and results of the tests). Psychologists cannot, unfortunately, change the fact that the tests themselves are likely developed through a white middle-class male form of "standardization."

Question II

In 1999, after a number of dog attacks, Spain’s Agriculture Ministry proposed a law requiring the owners of potentially dangerous pets to undergo and pass a psychological test. Is this a good idea? Is the field of clinical psychology equal to such a task?

I'm certainly leery of the use of one psychological test (Chosen and developed by whom? Who gets to decide?) as an act of prevention. Anything that involves government regulation is a slippery slope. I think government regulation can be and is a very effective way of protecting the safety of a government's citizens from harm; however there is always the invisible line that can be crossed easily that indicates that the government has gone too far and encroached upon individual rights to privacy. The tough part is figuring out where that invisible line exists. In a democracy in which a constitution is used to draw the lines between personal and political powers, psychological testing enforced by law would likely only be constitutional if it were performed on prisoners. I don't know what rights of criminals and prisoners possess, and I am not well versed enough in constitutional law to be able to argue the finer points of any dimension of the constitutionality of enforced psychological testing. If I were interested in making an argument for or against enforced preventative psychological testing for the purposes of decreasing the number of dog attacks, I would construct my argument by drawing upon specific constitutional laws as well as by drawing upon works of philosophical and literary theories on morality, individualism, community responsibility, criminality and personhood. Preventing dog attacks from occurring becomes, not simply a psychological issue but more so, an issue of ethics. Some people might argue that it is unfair (and therefore unethical) to punish the whole of a society because of the dangerous behavior of a few. Others might argue that a psychological test is for the common good of the citizens of a society and is not punishment for all but rather a preventative measure against a dangerous minority. If the problem of dog attacks was so bad that I could no go outside without fearing for my life, then I would look to my government to put in place measures that would ameliorate the problem. If the problem were increasing yet still isolated, I would look to my government to provide help and information (without necessarily passing a law). I'm not opposed to regulatory laws, but I it depends on the law itself (in this case, the content of the psychological test itself).

Regardless of whether or not the issue is one the government should address, I find the use of a psychological test as a preventative measure to be off-base and inappropriate. The decision to use a psychological test implies that ALL people who deal with psychological issues and disorders are unfit to be caretakers of (certain breeds of) dogs. What will this psychological test determine, anyway? Will anyone with any hint of mental illness fail? If not, which mental illnesses affect one's ability to care for and control a pet and which do not? Can you assume that just because someone experiences a psychological dysfunction or strays to some degree at some time or another from optimal mental health (as determined or dictated or discovered via a government implemented psychological test) they are incapable of being a responsible dog owner? Can you assume that just because someone does not experience a psychological dysfunction or does not stray to some degree at some time or another from optimal mental health (as determined, dictated and discovered by a government implemented psychological test) they are fit to be a successful dog owner? No, and no. I find the clumping of all the individuals into one of two categories (either a psychological success and, therefore, likely to be a responsible pet owner OR a psychological failure and, therefore, unlikely to be a responsible pet owner) to be illogical and disconcerting. I find this characterization to be dehumanizing of people who experience psychological dysfunction, especially given that most of us experience some form or another of psychological dysfunction during our lifetimes. Is the "logic" at work that all individuals who are irresponsible pet owners are also, invariably, psychologically unhealthy? I hope not. And worse is the idea that people who experience mental dysfunction are incapable of being successful (responsible) pet owners. That's mythical thinking, at best. In my own experience, I have witnessed several people, living with varying degrees of psychological dysfunction, who were excellent, above-average and incredibly responsible pet owners. I don't know the contents of the psychological test itself, but if it's a pass or fail test - it's likely that these incredible pet owners would not have been able to own a "potentially dangerous" pet.

On the other side of this, I can see why we would want only the most responsible pet owners to own certain breeds of dogs that are more prone to aggression. Would you want a violent person to be the owner of a violence-prone dog? No, but how can you prevent this? A violent person is probably just as much of a threat to society with a dog as he would be without a dog. Is an aggressive dog in the care of a violent person the same as a loaded gun in the hands of a violent person? What else, aside from certain dog breeds, are you also going to deny the violence-prone individual without depriving him of his freedom (especially if he is violent-prone but has no official history of violent behavior). Psychological dysfunction and irresponsibility are not intrinsically related. There are responsible and irresponsible individuals with psychological disorders, much as there are responsible and irresponsible individuals without psychological disorders.

When my partner and I lived in Buffalo, NY a few years ago, a couple moved in next door to us and we soon realized, soon after they moved in, that the male member of the couple sold mastiffs at an inner city location for a living. That would not have affected us at all were it not for the fact that he was also breeding mastiffs. In his backyard (which was virtually in our back yard). He had a fence up and kept the pregnant mastiffs chained up all day. After they moved in, the yard became an unsightly, muddy mess. Every time we went outside (and even while we were inside), the mastiffs freaked out - they shook the fence and growled and barked. Now I don't know much about that particular breed of mastiffs (I'm assuming they were American Mastiffs), but they did not EVER seem happy to see us. They did not seem like they wanted to come over and say hello. They definitely seemed as though they wanted to break the fence and pin down the intruders (us, their neighbors). Sometimes, when their owner was not present, I would stand across from them and try to reason with them, saying things like "Hi, I live next door. I don't want to hurt you. You can stop barking. And, please, if you do happen to escape, don't eat me." Most of the time, though, I tried to ignore them (Yeah, RIGHT) and went about my business.

The incessant warn-growling and barking made our outdoor experiences significantly less enjoyable. I was very concerned for our aging sheltie, Cydney, who ran over to the edge of our yard and barked back at them. She had quite a yap and an independent little fighting spirit, but, much as I hate to think about it, they would have made her into a snack in less than two minutes flat if they were to break the chains. The same probably goes for me, except I would hope I would have the sense to play dead. Although mastiffs are said to be great with children, these mastiffs were locked up all day and were not trained. They were there to breed and only to breed. They weren't walked. I never saw anyone play with or talk nicely to them. It was sad. I did feel compassion for them. Still, I did not want them locked up day in and day out five feet away from me. I hoped that the dog breeder would move to a rural area (or to I Don't Care Where). Luckily, we moved first (I'm shocked someone bought the house, actually). What could we have done if we wanted to stay? I'm not sure where was much we could do. We could have inquired about it and talked to our neighbor, Earl. We, my partner and I, talked about it. We decided that if we ever had children that we would move for our own sense of security. While having a mastiff for a neighbor might have been acceptable to us (if we had been introduced by the owner and witnessed that the dog was well-mannered around small children), having a disgruntled prisoner mastiff for a neighbor was not acceptable to us. I can't say that I blame Earl for breeding mastiffs in his backyard (okay, yes I can), but I can blame him for not doing what it takes to care for and train his mastiffs. Was he mentally ill? Who knows. Would knowing that he experienced mental dysfunction have had any effect on his irresponsible breeding non-policies? No, knowing probably wouldn't. It wasn't the state of Earl's mental health that we cared about (although given his perpetual face of madness - as in anger, we did wonder...), it was the quality care and level of ownership of his dogs that we cared about.

Psychological tests are not the best way of monitoring and controlling owners of potentially dangerous pets. There are other, less obtrusive, ways of preventing dog attacks from occurring. Making specialized training for certain, dangerous breeds a requirement for pet ownership might be a more effective alternative. That way, the focus would be on controlling the problem (dog attacks) rather than on controlling the owner based on some unrelated criteria. A government could make training mandatory or could offer free training if the issue is of such importance to the people represented by it. I think the best preventative measures are education - making it accessible is one step forward, and if that isn't working, then making it mandatory is the next step. The bottom line: in the best case scenario, preventative measures (rather than reactionary ones) would be devised and implemented to address the problem of dog attacks. I do not consider the psychological testing of dog owners to be the best and most relevant (or effective) measure.

Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Art and Work of Vomit Bread

2012-02-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

Late this morning my younger daughter wanted to make banana bread with me. Well, I brought up the idea after she had been emptying the cupboards of their plastic and metal contents and pretending to cook at the stove by placing boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in sauce pans (yeah, I know, look at the mad cooking skills I'm teaching my kids - "place box of uncooked macaroni and powdered cheese in pan, and voila!"). Elanah doesn't know how her mommies jumped up and down when MummyJ made a roux for the first time (which was two weeks ago, probably). She doesn't yet know about the time, when Mummy and Momma Si first met, when Mummy tried to make Momma Si a dinner based on a Martha Stewart recipe for pasta and a red sauce (one that involved sun dried tomatoes or sun dried red peppers, I can't recall). Someday I will tell her all about how I poured the cornstarch directly into the sauce instead of mixing it with water first. Someday I will tell her about how Momma Si ate all the little lumps in the sauce just to let MummyJ know how much she appreciated the...effort. Yes, Elanah's lucky that she will grow up with the ideal parent. No, not me. Sandy. Duh. Sandy knows how to do everything. Except dance. (But I bet she knows more than she lets on.)

Sandy is going to empower and teach her daughters to do all the things I, unfortunately, don't know how to do. If you know me, you know that's an exceptionally long list. If you know Sandy, you know she can cover every single item on the list in half the time it would take me to complete one. That's how competent she is. You would never have guessed it earlier in her life, but the woman (my wife-partner) was meant (and I mean MEANT) to be a parent. To two daughters. Sandy, even though she doesn't talk about feminism, is living my feminist ideals. She's a living work of feminism. I think she's probably lived a number of past lives in which she was a trades-person, a farmer, and a crafts-person. In this life, she has learned a lot by doing (working in a spinach plant/factory, picking corn in a field from dawn 'til dusk, teaching industrial arts to middle school age kids at a time when corporal punishment was still used, and working in a cabinet shop as a carpenter - to name a few). What work have I done? Uh. Hmmm. Uhhh. Ummm. I cut bagels in half at Manhattan Bagel for three days when I was 15. I worked at a sub shop for a coupla months before I left for college. In 2002. I worked part-time in the Toddler Room at Hampshire College during my one semester there. I weighed, packaged and shipped nuts and bolts for my parents' automotive supplies company on-and-off for a few years. (Hey, I cared about that stuff. I even made a List of Duties and Responsibilities for my parents to hang on the wall as a reminder for whomever else was going to replace me in the Chasewood Basement Warehouse when I left for Western Illinois.) I think that about sums up the career domain of my life thus far. Oh, wait....there's more. I made three hundred dollars when I was ten years old for my role as Tina Denmark in Summerfare Theatre's production of "Ruthless." AND I made a few hundred bucks posing nude (for the Art Department at WIU) before I graduated in December 2006 (uh, holy shit, it's been five years since I graduated from college).

Hmmm. Let me wrack my brain. Are there any other ways that I have made money by doing work (and yes, for your information, being nude in public is WORK, my clothed friends)? The only thing I can come up with is that I did odd jobs for Grandma Mel (my mother's mother) for at least fifteen years of my life. For money. I wiped dead flies and living spiders out of the tracks of her sliding doors. I ironed, vacuumed, dusted, and polished for her. I chopped vegetables on the brown linoleum counter and picked the heads off of marigolds in the summer. I dove to the bottom of the pool to collect leaves and scrubbed toilets. I sang for her friends at Bridge luncheons. I was raking in the big bucks (seriously, fifty bucks for a couple of songs!). I should have lived with her. Oh wait, no I should not have. What am I nuts? Though I am terribly incompetent at the practical things involved with owning a house, believe it or not I am actually a hard working person who tries hard, possesses a great deal of dependability and determination and a great desire to learn. But when it comes to holding a job in the public sector, let's just face it: I never have. From before I was five years old until I was twenty two, I was a student without having to do work (other than school-related work). Being in plays, being a student and writing poetry - do they involve work? They sure do. But do they constitute a career? Well, I guess if I made money or received recognition.

What makes a career? What is work? Is it only work if you hold an official title in some sort of company or public sector? Of course not. Being a stay-at-home parent is work. It's super duper hard work. Some people say that being a stay-at-home parent gives them the greatest joy they've ever experienced. I love my children, but I am not one of those people. I have found the last couple of years staying at home to involve a lot of drudgery. I don't think that experience and my feelings about staying-at-home have anything at all to do with my kids. It's about me. The way I'm wired, I suppose. I may be too selfish. I may be too distracted. Whatever. I am what I am. I require time to zone out, time to write, time to sing, etc. The first year I was home with Darah, I was perfectly satisfied and calm. That was my most successful year as a stay-at-home parent. I was not writing (very much). I was not making You Tube videos. I was not on Facebook all the time. I was breastfeeding and reading "Harry Potter" and wiping up projectile (acid) reflux. That is what I did. I breastfed Darah every couple of hours for a year, and while I breastfed her I rocked in a chair and read the first two "Harry Potter" books and Gloria Naylor's "Bailey's Cafe." I edited some poetry, but without any sense of urgency. I was not prolific or productive. I was just a reader/feeder/breeder. For one year. Until I became pregnant with Elanah. After I became pregnant, I could no longer read. I no longer breastfed.

For three months I was sick twenty-four hours a day with nausea. I spent my days lying on the couch with Darah. She watched television in the morning. Then I laid on the floor of her playroom and read her books before lunch. Sandy or Adam or Elisa would come home/over to give her lunch, if they were available. On days when it wast the two of us (plus babe in belly), Sandy had our lunches prepared so I could spend minimal time with the food and in the kitchen. I could hardly stand being in the kitchen or around food for more than a few minutes. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for two weeks straight, and watched "Roseanne" reruns while Darah ate her tortellinis and peas (or whatever, I've blocked it out...). Thank God for "Roseanne" reruns and baby-themed shows on TLC, they made my days less mundane. Most of all, though, thank God Darah was such an easy kiddo. She was content to sit and talk with me and watch television with me and read books with me and play with stuffed animals on the floor or the couch with me all day long for three months. At nap time, we would sleep together. I remember what a relief it was to head into the bedroom with her. She went right to sleep. We were snuggled into each other, unless her breath smelled like Ranch dressing (in which case she faced away from me). I loved when she would eat strawberries for lunch because it was one of the few smells I could stand. Strawberries - a very effective breath freshener. Good for intimacy (as long as you get the seeds out of your teeth before you start making out...I guess I should have more clearly said "good for sexual intimacy" to separate the memory of snuggling with my daughter from the making out recommendation).

With Darah, my job was to be a soft place and to feed her breastmilk. That's what I did. No one one saw it or said, "Hey, you're doing a great job. Your breasts are superb." No one offered me a raise or gave me a service award or anything like tha-at. It was just me and easy-going, content Darah in the rocking chair, rocking and being together. I fulfilled my duties be milked, and thus I was milked. I don't know what happened after Elanah was born. Something took hold of me. The hormones were different. I got pregnant only one month after I stopped breastfeeding Darah. Sometimes I think I should have taken a bigger break between, but I wanted to get the show on the road! I wanted to have three kids, so I prayed that I was pregnant with twins. But out came Elanah, precious and alive and as needy as she was. I don't want to talk about the year after Elanah was born in a way that makes it seem like I blame Elanah for any of my difficulty. I do not blame her at all. I know SHE, my perfect and precious child, is separate from what happened. What happened, in a nutshell, was that I was thrown into a very stressful situation that caused me a great deal of depression and anxiety. Elanah and I struggled terribly with breastfeeding. From the moment I brought her home she wanted to suck on my nipple with the smallest and most voracious yet dissatisfied little mouth. I had been to a years worth of La Leche League meetings. I had seen videos about and seen my friends receive assistance with breastfeeding. I was excited to breastfeed Elanah, since Darah and I had such a pleasant breastfeeding experience. But Elanah is her own person, a very verrrrry strong-willed person, and she wanted to have it/do it her own way. Unfortunately her way and my way were in conflict.

From the start, she would not open her mouth. I tried all of the tricks of the trade. On multiple occasions. I was hormonal and frustrated, and I'm sure my frustration with the situation didn't help. Elanah wanted to be attached to me at ALL times. And remember, I had Darah so it just wasn't possible. Elanah would breastfeed for short periods of time ALL day long. She would suck for five minutes and then release to look around or kick me or bat me or scratch me. Then she would want to suck again for another five minutes. She would have been content to do this constantly. For Elanah and me, breastfeeding was a source of frustration. When I would put her down or on her tummy or in the swing or in the bouncer or in the play yard she would scream BLOODY murder. Every time I put her down, when she wasn't dead asleep, she would howl and scream NON-STOP. Darah and I spent hours listening to the screams. I felt so sorry for Darah to have to hear that SO often EVERY day but I didn't know what to do. I couldn't hold Elanah all the time. I had to hold Darah sometimes. I had to do dishes sometimes. I had to take a rest from carrying sometimes. I spent the majority of my days, at that time, holding and carrying Elanah while Darah joined us wherever we were. Darah would bring me things when I needed them. She was extremely cooperative. I did my best to give her one on one time, but a lot of that one on one time was accompanied by shrieking. It is a delicate topic, I know. Even just thinking about it right now, I feel like crying...crying because of how overwhelmed and isolated I felt, crying because of how awful I felt for Darah, crying because of how awful I felt for Elanah (because I felt like I was failing her by being so unhappy all the time). Okay, wow, I really am crying right now thinking about it. I do think of that period as a dark time in my life. I'm sure there was some postpartum depression going on. But I also think the circumstances exacerbated it so much. I felt terrible. I felt like a failure. With all the screaming and the kicking and the five minute breastfeeding, I wanted to scream and punch a wall and cry. Instead, I tried to hold it in until it just came out in little burst of anger. Like yelling, "Ugh, why can't you just stay still for ONE minute" into the air while changing Elanah's diaper. I don't think a lot of people understand what it is like to be with a child who has high needs and is struggling with something (colic, gastrointestinal distress, anxiety, hyperactivity - I still have no clue what was going on, we were never able to "figure it out." In the end, after I read a book by Dr. William Sears, we just thought of it as a "high needs" situation).

I was with Elanah (and Darah) in a highly stressful environment/situation for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for over a year. Elanah would not BE with anyone but me. Any time Sandy and I tried (though it wasn't all that often) to get Elanah to separate from me for a period of time, Elanah would scream hellish screams THE WHOLE TIME. It was unpleasant for Sandy (of course) and I just felt too guilty to do it. I immediately came back and picked up Elanah. But it wasn't good for Sandy and me, either. I felt, at times, resentment toward her (okay, I'm crying again) because I blamed her for not being more persistent. I don't know what I was really blaming her for, I guess I was just blaming her because I was so depressed and frustrated. I wished Sandy knew what to do and could solve the problem. I wished I lived near my family (not just 'cause I love them, but for RELIEF). I wished someone or something, anything, would magically appear and relieve me. I just wanted to be alone...sleep, alone, away from EVERYONE. And in a lot of ways, I was alone. Those were the things the angry voice in my head was saying at the time ("I wish this" and "I wish that.") I talked to others about the struggle, but I never expressed how awful and on-edge I was feeling. Sandy and I commiserated whenever I wasn't blaming her for not doing what I could not and would not ask her to do. BOTH of us were struggling. Both of us were stressed. Highly stressed. She would come home from work at five, feeling tired, and start to cook dinner. I was, by five o'clock, tired and disengaged and easily (very, very easily) annoyed. We didn't connect very much. Sandy felt as disconnected from me as I did from her. She felt lonely, too. But more than that, she felt like she was being blamed unfairly.

Dinnertime was the worst (which was hard - because that was our time together as a family, after Sandy came home from work and before we all went to bed). I would hold Elanah while I tried to eat dinner. I was angry and annoyed at having to do so. Every night we would try to put her in the bouncer while we ate dinner, but she would scream so loudly and endlessly that I almost always picked her up (out of sheer torture) so that we could have a little silence. While I was suffering from extreme fatigue and depression and hours listening to shrieking, I also felt so sorry for Elanah who was obvious not a very happy camper. I felt like she was always unhappy and bothered. And, worse, like there was NOTHING I could do to help her. She was, at every doctor appointment, deemed fit and normal. When I would feed her around 8PM (while we read Darah her bedtime books...and often I would be the reader because that was something I've always enjoyed doing), Elanah seemed so tortured. She would flail and grunt and kick me and slap me over and over and over (she would kick me OVER and over - and HARD). I would make sort of serious statements to Sandy like, "Something is not right. Something is not right. It's like she has a demon in her body. It's like she's in pain." Sandy would suggest, sometimes, that it seemed like something neurological was going on within her that caused her to flail and spasm. I was in misery, just getting through by telling myself that it would not last forever. We never figured out what it was. I did a lot of research on what it might be, but to no avail. My conclusion, internally, was that she might have some sort of hyperactivity issue. She would suck and stop and cry and suck and stop and cry. I would grind my teeth together and say, "Elanah STOP. STOP. STOP. I'm not feeding you if you don't stop. Just STOP. Just stop." I know that doesn't sound good. It wasn't good. I was at my wits end by that time of night. I would think to myself, "No one knows what this is like. No one knows. No one knows how hard this is."

I did feel, on some level, like I SHOULD be going crazy. I would wish that I had a video camera to record it because I felt like no one truly knew what it was like to be with a baby who cried and screamed and fought ALL day long, EVERY day. I would lie down in bed at night and turn my back to Sandy and feel frustration and anger all over my body. I would sometimes cry myself to sleep. And then I would wake up (an hour later, when Elanah was crying to breastfeed) and feel a little better and more loving. Usually by the morning I worked out all of my anger and came to a place of semi-neutrality, even though I was up every hour of the night feeding Elanah. I was terribly sleep deprived and sleep-interrupted. I didn't foresee any improvement. I was in a perpetual bad mood. I would say, "I don't like breastfeeding." I would complain about breastfeeding. I thought stopping was the best solution. And, given the situation, I actually do think it WAS the best solution. I stopped breastfeeding Elanah somewhere around 14 months. I did it cold turkey, just the way I did for Darah. It worked pretty well. She wanted it for a day and then it sort of slipped out of her mind. Don't get me wrong. It was really hard. She cried. I cried. It was its own form of torture. But at least it was a short lived form of torture instead of a long-endless-night/year of torture. After I stopped breastfeeding Elanah, our relationship improved vastly. I can't say why, but I think it had something to do with the fact that she was moving around more and we were not frustrated with each other as much.

The best thing that stopping breastfeeding did for me was that it allowed me to hold and comfort Elanah just for the sake of doing so. It increased my positive regard for Elanah. My attitude shifted, and that benefited everyone in the family. With Darah, breastfeeding was the context in which we snuggled and felt closeness. With Elanah, breastfeeding was the context in which we struggled and got angry at each other. When Elan and I stopped, it was like the anger was finally able to rest. I cried, out of happiness, because it felt good to just hold her and experience the exchange of our mutual positive feelings (even though that was hard at times, because she was such a mover and doer). I felt like Elanah started to grow and her personality really started to come out after we stopped breastfeeding; but maybe it was just that I was able to see her in a new way because I wasn't consumed by the anger and depression to such a dramatic extent. A funny thing, though, was that I wrote my thirty page "Tale of One or Two Lesbians" while breastfeeding Elanah. Maybe as a way of coping with my depression. Who knows. That was one really tremendous and productive thing that happened during or as a result of that tumultuous period - I started writing again. Once I started writing, I felt renewed in it. I felt restored in it. I loved it. I clung to it. And here I am, still clinging to it (or at least DOING it) today. Is it work? Maybe it is. Is doing whatever it is that I have been doing for the past four years work? Yes. Yes it is. After writing what I just wrote, I see it more now than ever. It was work. It was work. Wow.

Because I have had a glimpse into my own darkness, I can see how a person who struggles with depression might see simply surviving (getting up in the morning and making it through each day) as work. Living IS work. Doing your best each day is work. So back to the question from long ago that I asked myself - what work have I done? Work. Enough work. I've done my best, I've done enough. Can I change the filter on the air conditioner? Probably. Can I install a fan? Probably not. I do what I can. And I try to do what I have never done to increase what I can do. Sandy, with her can-do talents (she says she learned it, but I suspect there's some other factor that makes it come so naturally to her and so unnaturally to me), is helping me. I'm still a long way from where I'd like to be. I've never lived alone. The one and only time I lived on my own was for one semester at Hampshire College. Other than that, I've been a co-dependent cohabitant. When I started having a relationship with Sandy, my parents were not supportive. They threatened to pull away their financial and otherwise support of me if I continued with Sandy. While my mother became more and more volatile and out of control about it, I naturally turned toward Sandy for help. She became my help, my guide, my support. She became my complete financial support. She paid off all of my college loans, she paid for everything. Every thing. The tuna steaks and the tartar control toothpaste. The fingerless gloves and the art-festival bowls. Yes, everything.

When I moved in with Sandy, my mother really freaked. My parents were angry and they tried to use the leverage they could to gain control of me. They blamed me for leaving, as if they had no clue as to why I would feel a need to get the hell away from there. My siblings, taking cues from my parents, were hurt and angry at me. They, too, felt I was abandoning "the family." I guess that's what happens when you are the first-born, you end up -whether you like it or not- being the family trail-blazer. I remember how they would say, "But YOU left us. YOU chose to move out." And I remember thinking, "Of COURSE I moved out. You blame me for choosing an alternative to terrible conditions? You tell me to leave if I am going to be with Sandy and then you blame me for leaving!" I also remember feeling very resentful - thinking, "Well SOMEONE is going to have to LEAVE THE FAMILY unit at some time. It's going to happen some time. When you all move out, it won't be a big deal. For me to do it, it's hurtful and an act of cruelty." But, as you might imagine, I was unyielding in my refusal to be told what to do. Sandy's financial and overall support allowed me to set my own rules. And so I never really got to set my own rules independently. I moved from one form of dependence to another. Luckily, however, I moved to a MUCH healthier, much BETTER place of dependence. Sandy was not out to manipulate me. She was not out to use my complete dependence on her against me for her own selfish purposes. She was very much in opposition to that. She wanted to help me become more independent. She wanted to empower me to become independent. So it's been a long process and I'm still not at a place where I could be independent if I even wanted to do so. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be independent (and I don't simply mean living on my own - I mean being able to survive in the world alone if I have to or want to do so). I am so grateful to Sandy for supporting me and loving me and giving me so much room to grow. I am so grateful to her for SAVING me from the manipulation and abusive control of my parents when they could not help but behave any differently. She gave me a warm, luxurious and loving place to become myself AWAY from it all...away from all the fighting, away from all the anger and hate. I think, at that time in my life, I was in desperate need of someone to "rescue" me from my home/family environment. She had the means to do so. And she did. But someday I hope to be in a place were I feel like I could rescue myself. If need be. And, surely, someday need will be. I can't ALWAYS depend on someone else to take care of me. Part of the problem was that I was ACCUSTOMED to being taken care of...my parents raised me to be somewhat of a Victorian lady. What can I say. I was helpless. Just a girl singing my her window and looking out at shrubs. My parents took care of me, and did almost everything for me, so much so that when it came time to leave for college I was in trouble. I had to do things for myself and had little to no practice doing so. I was terrified. What do you think I did during my first semester? Stayed in my little room, singing and looking out at the shrubs.

It has taken me years to make decisions and take action on my own behalf in the public sector, and I'm still not that great at it. I'm a lot less afraid (of anything, except for violent men, birds, and accidents that might involve my kids) and that's a good thing. Part of Sandy wanted to save me from it all, but she also wanted me to go into it with a spirit of independence. I had not ever developed one. She got to see me at my most helpless, babyish, and fearful - and sometimes it just annoyed the heck out of her. She wanted me to blossom into a person more confident and independent than her (since while she is very independent, she still doesn't enjoy a lot about social pursuit). I'm still an indecisive, wavering little person (on the whole). Maybe I always will be. But once I know what is expected, I am not usually afraid to give it a try. Sometimes Sandy tells me I'm a little bird that wants to fly. That's when I slap her. (Just kidding - oh how I used to be...okay, still am...so scared of birds.) Maybe someday I will fly. But I'll still be me. I'll still say things like, "I don't care which restaurant we go to. Whichever you want." But when pressed, I'll say, "Okay, if I have to choose, we're going for sushi!" Being a parent has also made me more confident and decisive. I make decisions for and about the girls every day. (Hey, I never said I didn't like being in charge. I just don't like being in charge of MYSELF.) I try to pass on a small sliver of insight to my daughters by saying things like, "You better pay attention when Momma Si teaches you how to tie that knot. When I was little, I never payed attention and never had anyone show me how to tie one. And now look at me. I still make two loops to tie my shoe laces. You better pay attention so you can choose how you want to tie the knot for yourself someday."

I can also show them that it's okay to try something new. That it's even okay to make a fool of yourself while trying something new. Opening a jar, for instance, might be a challenge. I might break the counter top trying to get it open (JUST KIDDING, sorta). I might make loud, goofy noises. And then I might ask for help. But, at least I TRIED. I can show them that it's okay to make mistakes. Yes, I can certainly show them that. Over and over. And over. This morning, while Elanah was "rearranging" the kitchen and having a grand ol' time "cooking;" I was typing madly a poem and consciously allowing the kitchen to be trashed in order to be able to get the damn thing done (the damn thing is the poem, and it's only a damn thing because it's a damn good thing). After I finished writing the poem, I closed up "shop" and turned to the kitchen to see...everything. My first reaction was stress. My second reaction was awareness: I knew I had allowed the whole thing to happen that way. So instead of complaining, I complimented Elanah on the way she set the table. Then I asked her if she wanted to help me make banana bread. She said, "Yah. Yah. Yaaaah" a few times and started pulling out mixing bowls and peeling bananas. Amidst the chaos of the kitchen and in the presence of Elanah's hands-on approach (hands-IN approach, actually), we managed to make some bread. It wasn't your average banana bread, though. I did not check beforehand to see if we had enough banana for the recipe. I just assumed two and a half bananas were enough for one little loaf of bread. Eh. Wrong. Not enough. Not at all. Not even half-enough when mashed.

We were in the THROES of the moment, and I wandered around the kitchen looking for something to substitute for the missing 1 1/4 cups of banana. The closest thing I could find (consistency wise) was canned pumpkin. Actually, I thought I was quite clever. I opened it up and lectured Elanah about how Momma Si would never approve of making such a bogus substitution and that baking is really an exact science but that Mummy J never does things exactly and has her own experimental trial-and-error, throw a little in here and a little in there without a bit of measurement approach to life...ah, I mean baking. I added a little extra brown sugar to make up for the lack of sweetness in the pumpkin (as opposed to the banana, and no I did not measure the sugar). I added a little extra flour into the dry ingredient bowl to make up for the extra dense moisture of the pumpkin (and no, I did not measure the flour). As we stirred the wet ingredients together (pumpkin, banana mush, eggs, brown sugar, butter), I felt a little uneasy. Probably because I was looking down at VOMIT. What looked like vomit. It looked more like vomit than vomit looks like vomit. I said to Elanah, "We're not making banana bread anymore. We're making vomit bread." She seemed excited. "I think it's gonna be really good," I said. That was one thing we could agree on. It started looking more like a bread dough/mixture after we stirred it into the dry ingredients. I was so curious, I had to taste it.

And would you believe that vomit bread dough tastes INCREDIBLY good. Better than vomit bread itself. The vomit dough alone (minus the raw eggs) is worth the terrible sight...something you would expect to see in your toilet while the room is still spinning. While I did the dishes and Elanah ate her lunch, I reveled in my vomit bread creation. I thought to myself, "Vomit bread is a great thing to make for Halloween. But we can make it anytime here, because every day is Halloween here!" So if you, like me, live in a world where Halloween is every day, then you might want to conduct your own experiment with pumpkin and mushy bananas. Vomit bread is a special bread. It's not something you can just serve anyone. Heh. I'm sure there is someone in your life for whom you wouldn't mind having to concoct and serve up serve a little Vomit Bread. They would think it was pretty good (although kind of gooey and a little wet on the bottom), and, they would never know unless you told them, what kind of bread they were eating. My belly's full of vomit bread. I feel incredibly well, albeit exhausted. What does it mean, though, that I served myself, Sandy, the girls and a kindly visitor vomit bread? I guess it just means that I have my own unique feeling toward and interpretation of vomit. To me, vomit loses its power when you bake it at 350 degrees and consume it. Vomit, contrary to popular opinion, is quite digestible. Come on over sometime and I'll let you have a taste.

Maria Callas - Casta diva - Callas Toujours - Debut Paris 1958 - HQ

2012-02-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

Abnormal Discussion Week 2: If People are not Labels, then People are not People

2012-01-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

The theme of my night: People are not people. People = a label. Gotta love it. So people ARE labels, then?

I love this course material. PSY 424. I'm actually enjoying the material. Almost as much as I enjoy ethnic and feminist literature (I said ALMOST, don't get carried away...). The discussion posts made by most students in this on line course are, as you might imagine, much shorter and less...well, less...

Anyhow, I plan to post my discussion posts on my blog when I think they are worthy of being read by someone other than me.

QUESTION 1

Question Posed: Many people argue for a “people first” approach to clinical labeling, recommending, for example, the phrase “ a person with schizophrenia” rather than “a schizophrenic.” Why might this approach to labeling be preferable?

Simply put, it would be inaccurate, unnecessary and insensitive to use a label that describes one aspect of an entire person in order to characterize the entire person. While most of us know that a person is not her or his disorder, a person is not her or his sexual orientation, a person is not her or his physical condition; it is difficult for the majority of us to define what makes a person a person. We spend a great deal of time, as humans, trying to understand and develop our individual personalities. We are constantly bombarded with messages in the media that encourage us to define ourselves in terms of one of our preferences: what music we like, what coffee we drink, what kind of e-reader we use. The media banks (CHA-CHING!) on our desire to Be Somebody - to identify with something, to associate ourselves with something larger than ourselves. If we feel a sense of belonging and community in something (in a group, for instance), then we are likely to feel a certain degree of pride in the label attached to that community. If we feel isolated and alone in something (in a long-time struggle with a family member, for instance), the we are likely to feel a certain degree of shame in the labels and meanings attached to that struggle. In that regard, the degree of isolation and sense of belonging largely determine our perceptions and feelings about any given label. But, whether we shun or embrace a label, people are still not labels.

Even the term "people" is just a linguistic device created to for the purposes of communication and identification. Though it's hard to definitively say why or how, there does seem to be some human drive that propels us to create language in order to interact and communicate with others in the world. Speaking of language and labels, I was captivated and intrigued by Halgin and Whitbourne's description of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a "common language." Though I doubt the authors considered the linguistic connotations and connections and interpretations that can be made in connection to the organization and delineation of disorders, their reference to a common language is a perfectly fitting and far-reaching descriptor. I appreciate the way in which the authors frame the language of disorder as a "common language" because it evokes the simplistic yet profound idea that we all espouse in some form or another: to engage in a common language. We seek, in our work environments, in our romantic relationships, in our home life, to create and relate a common understanding. We seek, and it is very natural and beneficial to do so, community and communion and communality. A common language can free us to be ourselves, but it can also confine us. It benefits us to identify with and feel part of a community. However, if we become so identified with and infiltrated into one community, or into the foundational language that creates that community, we may lose sight of ourselves as individuals within that community. We may even become so accustomed to the body of language that we cannot see or think beyond it.

Language is both the creation of community and the creator of community. Before spoken and non-spoken language, there existed a non-verbal, non-human realm communication. The movement and interaction of the elements is a very synchronous and cyclical form of communication. Non-human elements in the world interact and come together in various ways. Water is absorbed into the air and comes back down to earth in order to water the land that harnesses the seed from which something, in direct sun or in partial shadow, grows to feed a hungry land creature that puts something back into the soil to replace what it has taken. We could look at human communication the same way, were it not for the great many languages that have allowed us to define and redefine and deconstruct our natural place in and relationship with the world as well as the language of living. I very much see the common language of the DSM as having dual-roles as both explicator and creationist. I think the authors of "Abnormal Psychology: Clinical Perspectives on Psychological Disorders" provide an excellent framework in Chapter 2 for understanding the purposeful yet limited and limiting nature of the DSM. It, like any language guide, provides its disciples and speakers (from varying backgrounds and at varying levels of fluency) with a evolving framework and instructive guide. It, like language, is a way of looking at something - it's a world view in and of itself because it creates a world view. As with any world view, there will always be limitations and contradictions with which its visionaries must contend.

In "The Dream of a Common Language," Adrienne Rich provides a poetic language for and about women by speaking in the language of women. Rich's collection of poems, separated into three sections, is, indeed, a "whole new poetry." The creation of a language arises when their is a need for such a language. The need exists because one of more members of a group, often a silenced and invisible majority or an oppressed minority group, desire to articulate their experiences in order to preserve their experiences and create a sense of community among themselves. More than anything, though, the language of the group is created in order to reach out to those outside the community in order to seek understanding and compassion from outsiders and oppressors in the hope that such an understanding will create change. The DSM was first developed in 1952 by the American Psychiatric Association. As in the case of Rich's poetic language, and the way it spoke to and about lesbians and marginalized/outsider women, the American Psychiatric Association sought to create a common language to speak to and about psychological disorders. It sought in its earliest form, on a very elemental level, to challenge misconceptions about mental health and unhealth as well as to create a communal resource and framework for, in which ratings and criteria and definitions could be used to connect insiders to one another and outsiders to insiders. It served and still serves as a tool to dispel stereotypes and stigmas that leave individuals with mental illness feeling isolated. It serves as a common language among mental health professionals as well as a way tool for those who have experienced mental illness to understand themselves and feel connected to the common language. And, for those outside of the mental health profession, it provides an informative framework into which the common language can be accessed, processed and comprehended. On the other side of that common language is the unfortunate fact that there will always be someone or something left out of that language. While language seeks to make outsiders insiders, it inevitably excludes and, therefore, creates outsidership. If there is a community to be in, there is also a community to be marginalized from.

Besides the limiting and dualistic nature of language itself, a common language always is vulnerable to misinterpretation and misuse. That is to say, sometimes we let the power of language go to our heads. Sometimes we forget that language is just language, becoming so caught up in the story of one common language that we lose our ability to interpret and experience the world in new ways, with new languages and new stories. That is my fear for the DMS and for the field of Clinical Psychology itself. The authors, however, do a wonderful job of calming my fears in their very comprehensive and sensitive presentation of the language. Halgin and Whitbourne offer us a very human-oriented and human-based approach to the subject of Abnormal Psychology, by providing us with the essentials of the common language while at the same time staying case (or individual) focused. They don't force us into a common language of dualistic labels; they, rather, apply the common language unobtrusively and without pretense into real life situations. I certainly have my own concerns about the ability of the powers that be in the mental health industry to influence and dictate our perception of mental health through their construction of a common language (with financial pressures from insurance companies to over-diagnose and overuse the label of disorder in order to suit the medical-model that allows the field of mental health to be a financial industry).

Anything that becomes part of what Minnie-Bruce Pratt calls "The Money Machine" is susceptible to becoming so caught up in the financial side of things that it loses its authenticity and effectiveness. Still, if the DSM is handled with care and thoughtfulness, as it was by the authors, I feel it can be a helpful common language. It all depends on the context and the individual situation - which is what the "people first" (and relationship-oriented) approach to clinical labeling is all about. I am curious about the theoretical background of the authors, since their style and approach appeals so much to me. I very much appreciate how attuned they are to the dimensionality of the individual. It's hard to read this chapter, even in light of the differing views that are presented, and not feel at ease about any fears you have about the dehumanization of the mental health diagnostic approach.

QUESTION 2

Consider the reasons why treatment is not always successful. How do the client’s insight, judgement, motivation, and ability to change affect treatment success? How do the clinician’s education, modality, competence, and theoretical orientation affect treatment success?

There are many things that might affect the success or failure of a treatment. Modality certainly would affect the types of treatments, as well as the goals for (and criteria for the success or failure) treatment. In a group therapy setting, the goal might be more centered on improving the functioning of the family unit as a whole; whereas in individual psychotherapy the goal would likely be more centered on improving the functioning of the individual (however - an improvement in individual functioning always leads to an improvement in interpersonal or communal functioning). It's hard to say how, exactly, the personal and theoretical orientation of the client and clinician affect treatment success. That's like trying to pin down the cause or root of a phenomenon. We can say everything affects everything, so yes, of course, insight, judgement, motivation, education, competence and theory would all affect one another and engage in an interaction that would affect the overall clinical process. Defining treatment success is just as difficult. We would have to have a very strong theoretical background, as well as a deeper knowledge of each of these qualities of the clinician and client in order to really say how the set of circumstances and characteristics come together to form a working relationship that results in treatment success or failure. It's also very difficult to define success or failure. Even a small step in the direction of mental health (of functionality) or a step away from isolation might be considered a success.

As we discuss this topic, I think it will helpful for each of us to think about how we might define success in a psychotherapeutic setting. I can't say anything about how any other client or clinician might define success. It's even hard for me to say how I would define success because I don't have the first-hand experience and I have never though about this subject before. I'm glad to be considering it, though. I have never, formally, been a clinician; however I have been a client. When I came out of the closet as a teen, my parents arranged for me to see therapists (it was my mother's desire that I should guided, through therapy, out of my defiant state of lesbianism). I saw a few clinicians at that time. I only considered one of those clinicians successful. But I still have trouble defining what made his approach successful in my eyes. I believe it was mostly a manner of his gentle-nature and theoretical orientation. I cannot actually define or point to definitively his theoretical orientation, I can only say that I felt accepted. I did not feel any pressure to tell him the lies I was telling everyone else. When I told him that I believed the love between the person in my past and I was mutual, and filled him in on why I felt/thought that way, he did not react with hysteria. He did not diminish nor negate my feelings. He honored my autonomy and even validated my feelings and experiences (not just by listening but by showing empathy and, dare I say, compassionate love).

To this day, I think about this man (he is a pastor and is near retirement) and wish that I could have continued seeking out his acceptance and moral guidance throughout my life. That was the closest thing to acceptance, in a counseling situation, that I experienced during that emotionally profound time in my life. I actually think it was his motivation-less mindset that made our work together successful. He did not seem to go into it with an agenda. Perhaps after he evaluated me, he felt that the best treatment plan was to provide me with a safe place of listening and true acceptance. I was, at the time, experiencing a great deal of unacceptance in some of the major realms of my life. Given that, I think he thought what he could best provide was a place of acceptance. Listening and acceptance and story-sharing and validation WITHOUT an intention to change or alter anything may have been his treatment plan. Isn't it ironic. His lack of seeking, his lack of a plan to change me was actually the thing that most affected (and perhaps even changed) me. What I needed more than anything, at that time, was a person I could trust and confine in and feel safe with. I did not have to worry that he was going to report the teacher I loved or tell my mother what she wanted to hear or request that I not label myself as a lesbian "just yet." Just knowing he was in the world, with the impression he made on me, made me a stronger, healthier person who felt she wasn't completely alone (who felt a great deal of relief knowing that someone out there, even just one single person, could understand and honor my love and perhaps even believe me).

He did just what I needed: he made me feel sane and acceptable. I felt sane and acceptable on some level, but my mother was forcing another message down into my psyche - that I was crazy, deranged, sick, evil. I don't know whether or not he felt he was successful with me, especially given that we had to stop meeting fairly early on because my parents could no longer afford it. I only know that I perceive myself as having benefit from it. I would like nothing more than to someday be able to provide that acceptance and validation for someone like myself who is isolated by their own intelligence and open-mindedness. Sometimes people just need support when they are in a place of isolation (when they find that they cannot relate easily to the majority of other around them, for whatever reason). My personal account as a client of counseling raises an interesting set of questions about the mutuality and/or separateness of client/clinician perception: Can a clinician feel she has been successful if her client does not feel it has been successful (in other words, can the perception of success by anything other than mutual? Is it still success?).

How To Come Out of the Closet, Easy Step-by-step Guide to the Big Day

2012-01-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

This is a How To video. How to come out of the closet. It addresses how to come out of the closet. You can come out of the closet to anyone - you can come out to your parents, you can come out to your neighbor, you can come out to your yoga instructor, you can come out to your English teacher (I recommend this highly), you can come out to your great grandmother, you can come out to your sister, you can come out to your daughter, you can come out to your dog, you can come out to anyone. This video is meant to be both funny and relevant. Coming out can be scary and traumatic. I, personally, had a traumatic coming out experience. However, this video makes light of that by showing how coming out can and should be. It's the easiest way to come out of the closet and the best case scenario for coming out of the closet. And the major theme that I hope you will get from this is that: Coming out of the closet, as scary as it might sound to you, really doesn't require anything special from you. Just the reserve and the courage to do it. If you have the courage, you CAN do this. It's all about being and expressing your authentic self to the world. So this is a how to be yourself video. The first thing you need to do it get out of bed. Sometimes the most simple and habitual activities are the ones that are necessary for something that feels very big and insurmountable. All I want you to do is get up, show up, and be yourself. Wear a cross or commit superstitious acts if they help you to come out and be yourself. Some people have a very warped idea of what it is to be a lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, queer, asexual, etc. person. Do you think that lesbians and gays get up in the morning and behave in immoral activities, such as, oh, say, singing in the shower or gargling with Listerine, or brushing their teeth? Lesbians and gays and people outside of the sexual (heterosexual) norms are not as different as you might want to think. Okay, well maybe I'm not the most mainstream of the bunch - but I get up in the morning, eat my breakfast, sit on the toilet, brush my teeth, sing in the shower, make the bed, etc. The end of this video is probably the most important part of it. Of course it's funny for me to place my two year old in a chair to come out to her. But sometimes that's a good place to start - start coming out to yourself in the mirror, move on to trees, then to pets, then to young kids. If you can come out to a mirror or to a tree or to a cat or to a two year old, that's a start. In those places, you will find acceptance (if you can't find it in the mirror, try a pond instead). You want your first coming out experience (the first time you tell someone you're gay) to be a positive experience. If there are others that you know will not react with love and acceptance, don't start with them. Take an advocate with you when you approach someone who may not be able to react with the respect you deserve. Don't go alone. Don't come out alone unless you know you'll be safe. I think the best thing this video does is to show that we start out as very loving and accepting people. The silliness of me telling my daughter I'm a lesbian is actually important: it makes the point that SHE COULD NOT CARE IN THE LEAST and that my sexuality is irrelevant to her. She is not the object of my affection, she is not being courted - she is just being told something that is irrelevant to her. She loves me, and doesn't give a hoot about my sexuality. She's a kid, sexuality means nothing to her at this age. Can you believe how easy it is to come out to her? It's nothing. It's as as easy, and better, than taking in a breath of fresh air. Make coming out easy on yourself. Enjoy it. Enjoy your first experience. Make a toast. Cheers to your Big Easy Day!!!

The Fellowship of the Outsider: Where We are Going, Only Time will Tell

2012-01-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

When I awoke at this morning, it was almost five AM. Elanah was standing at the side of our bed. I put her in the middle. Then I added Darah because I knew if she woke up on her own (i.e., without Elanah) she would be upset. Once they were both down and asleep, I didn’t want to move them for fear that they would wake up and not return to sleep. I tried to sleep next to Darah in the few inches that were available, but I was hanging off the bed so I decided to move into the twin bed by the window. My feet were cold, but I didn’t want to wake Elanah with the sound of the sock drawer opening so I piled pillows over my feet. I was still cold, so I covered my head with the comforter. And that was when a blog entry unfolded. In the quiet dark morning. Blogging. Mind-blogging. Basically, the voice in my head spoke aloud a whole blog entry that was coherent and insightful. No one else reads it or hears it, just me. Sound like torture to you? It was to me. Anytime I compose something, usually on the fly, in my mind; I feel an urgent desire to get it down on paper or on keypad. Around 6:30, I finally ended the unwritten entry and fell asleep. At 6:45 Elanah woke us all up, and we actually cooperated because we knew the wood floor installers (are they technically carpenters, or ?) would be coming soon to work on putting in our oak bedroom flooring. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been to bed before twelve or if I had taken the hot bath I was planning to take after the girls fell asleep last night or if I had actually risked waking the girls up this morning to open the computer and write the blog entry that was in my head. I didn’t do any of the above, I just had an insightful conversation with myself despite my freezing feet and had a fifteen minute power nap after having four or so hours of sleep. So here I am, delirious yet trying to take myself to the place where early morning insights live.

Before we turned off the lights last night, Sandy announced to us, “Mummy’s wearing her movie star eyes tonight.” When she started to say my name I was expecting her to say, “Mummy’s having a tough night, she seems to be stressed.” I was surprised by what she said, because I WAS acting like quite a sleepless grump (and that was last night, before going to “bed”). I looked at Sandy with my movie star eyes. “Awe, really? Thank you. I’m so exhausted, I thought I was wearing my sleep-deprived eyes.” Then we both agreed that maybe I was, maybe movie star eyes are just sleep-deprived eyes. In any case, I’ll admit that I’d give up a night’s sleep to be told by an amorous Sandy that I have movie star eyes. What’s two! Unfortunately, I think I have gone beyond movie star eyes and entered into another state of eyedom. I won’t be surprised if Sandy says tonight, “Mummy’s wearing her porn star eyes” or “Mummy’s wearing her movie extra eyes.” Or, even: “Mummy’s wearing her medical student eyes.” I don’t know if I was raised to be vain or if it’s just in my veins (!), but I feed off of complimentary verbal attention when it comes from someone I respect, find interesting, admire, am attracted to, or even someone I know nothing about. Never enough, never enough. The bottomless well behind my moviestarpornstarbmoviemedicalschool eyes. Throw her a compliment and she will put on a free show, folks!

Behind my movie star, or movie extra, eyes is a mind though (I'll have you know!). A really rambunctious and unstoppable mind. A mind that works sometimes like a synthesizer on Speed, unless someone mentions anything mathematical or anatomical or chemical (in those cases, a mind comes to an immediate halt). I'd get to the point if I had one. But here, here's something: I do a lot of reflection. I’m good at it. I like doing it. If it had been a subject in school, it would have been my best subject. I could reflect on anything. I’m convinced I could connect myself to anything. I can find myself in anything. Fibers from the rug, runoff in the ditch, the note on pitch or flat, the grease of the print on the mirror, the word on the edge of your lips that never makes it out, snowflakes so slight you wonder how their dusts of dew amount to anything. Am I just that narcissistic or is this a “gift”? Oh well, I’m just reflecting again. I could reflect my little life away, and then my movie star eyes might become rocks of fire lighting the night sky. It can be a nice quality, the reflective trait, especially as it expresses itself in writing and other conversational platforms. But, like anything, if you live with me and my constant state of reflection, you’d start to get sick of it and wish I would just be quit reflecting for one goddamn minute. Ask me to change? You couldn’t. Not when I don’t want to change. Maybe, instead, you could see me less often or see me differently and once again rekindle your appreciation of my life of reflection. Live next door to me and pretend you're meeting me for the first time when you see me stopping to stare at the moon on my way to my midnight mailbox. Maybe you could forget about the neurotic state of my reflection and imagine me to be a dreamer with a penchant for a lovely night sky. Often as soon as a moment happens, I start reflecting on it, creating art from it, analyzing and connecting it to other smaller and larger moments, memories, concepts, characters, stories.

So, in other words, I can think. I’ve got that one covered. I can think (often aloud) in such perpetuity that you'll surely want to strangle me after a month of being trapped with me on that (...) desert island. After you try to strangle me, I will give you some space. But then you'll find me writing thoughts in the sands with my fingers. You'll be relieved to know the tide will wash away the lines by morning but you'll find me there again, after the tide has eased your trouble, using my whole body to write a message with my seashell assistants and crabby consultants. (Actually, who can say what effect a desert island might have on me....I can only imagine - and when I'm not reflecting, I'm imagining...). I'm good at thinking. As for all the other ings in life, I may be at a loss. On my tombstone, it should be said that “She thought reflecting-thoughts and she reflected all she thought.” Hold that, I need some time to further...reflect on it. I’ll come up with something better (but if I don’t, that’s a starting place…and while I’m on the matter of my gravestone, don’t forget to hire an artist, using the six dollars I have to my name, to chisel two Georgia O’Keefe style cunt-inspired flowers intersecting. And if you are visiting my plot, don’t leave flowers. If you leave me artificial flowers, I will come to you in the night and give your cunt such a stir that it will never be still again! Please, in lieu of flowers leave vials of Witch Hazel, speak aloud sonnets, cast spells, masturbate, do something indecent. Come to me when the moon is ashine, especially when She is yellow and harvesting something she shouldn’t be harvesting). Oh, but enough reflection about meeee (myyyy future resting place); I’d rather reflect, right now, on some of my (whoops!) early morning reflections.

When Sandy and I first got together, in 2003, I had no one from my pre-Sandy life who was there in a way that I needed. I was isolated because of my choice to be with Sandy. I also took on the psychological role of an outcast - I shunned the people that I felt were shunning me. In other words, I began to hate the world. I went from seeing the world through rose (or purple) colored glasses to seeing the world through glasses without lenses. My eyes were burning. I wanted to love, but I just couldn't. The only one I loved was Sandy, because I saw her as Other Worldly (not of the world I hated). That is how I saw the pair of us. Aliens from another planet. You get the idea. Sandy and I married in 2005, when I was twenty. I didn't have anyone with me to cheer us on. If Sandy and I didn't plan it all so quickly, she would have had good people with us to cheer her on. I told my parents I would not blame them but I did not want them there unless they could be happy for us. So naturally, they did not come. I stood by my word. I never blamed them. That doesn't mean I didn't cry during our hair appointments that morning. That doesn't mean I don't feel sad when I think about whatever the hell it meant to me. It just means I don't blame. And really, despite my little snide comments about my Witch's email, I don't blame her. I know she was doing the best she could with the available information at the time, just like my parents were doing the best they could. I hope she's come a long way since then, so she can meet me halfway someday (<--- understatement). Sometimes I set the bar so high for people that they are destined to fail and then I look at them in disbelief, like "I can't believe you failed. I thought you were better than that." What a set up. I don't mean to do it, it's just part of being a little...errrrm, different. You all, my reader-friends, might have other ideas about me. I-dea-away!

Well we do know one thing. I’m very good at being “right.” I can chew a hypocrite out (and even myself when I’m a hypocrite) like no other. I’m terribly good at holding a grudge against someone who betrays my sense of fair play. I’m even terribly good at holding a grudge against The Witch I love and with whom I long for communion. It’s terrible how good I am at carrying all my grievances with me. But where to? Where will I carry them to? To a publisher, that’s where! Just kidding. Where I am carrying them is just with me. It’s nowhere but with me. I have to go back to the roots of my love in order to find the place for the letting go of the injustices. What good will carrying them do me? Probably not a lot. I’d rather carry the roots from which the love was born with me than the meaningless third or fourth generation twigs and branches of the overgrown bush it became. If what I want is to feel the roots, I need to trim back the bush. I can’t carry the dead trimmings with me in a shoulder sack if all I really want with the bush is to see that it hasn’t been uprooted, that it’s showing signs of new growth and that it’s still blossoming occasionally.

Way back when, the ultimatum was my weapon of choice in my witch-deprived world. It did protect me from cruelty but it did not protect me from suffering and becoming a big ball of emotional scar tissue. The ultimatum felt like the only tool I had available to fight for myself. (The key word here is FIGHT...) I was a very lonely and bitter person. I should have taken my Witch up (up and away) on her offer to “have dinner or lunch or coffee with me anytime.” At least I would have been trying to move toward something peaceful instead of fighting against everyone and everything. Ah, well, I cannot go back. I can't send an email to Nowhere. Ut ohhhhh. The Should-Haves have entered the building: I shouldn’t have been so right. I should have done this, I should have done that. The Should Haves, like the dead trimmings, need to leave the building NOW, though. The Should-Haves have no place in this building (or land or island) with its healthy and strong-rooted bush. In fact, the girl who was So Right in all the wrong ways doesn’t think it was even all that wrong that she was so right. At the time, she felt she needed to be right. She felt she needed to be right and loyal and ethical. She thought she was doing the right thing by not settling for anything less than fully supportive, respectful and humanizing people; people who welcomed Sandy into their lives with open minds and hearts. By doing what she thought was right at that time, she was right. Now if she was a different person with a different history - if she wasn't left out in the cold after she was drawn toward what appeared to be and felt like a great and powerful fire; then maybe she could have done differently. No, that's actually not a maybe. That's: she WOULD have done differently. The story wouldn't be what it is, she wouldn't be who she is today, nothing would be as it is. She, then the Right-fighter (yesterday the Right-writer and maybe someday the Right-righter) was defending and honoring Sandy. She, who then felt that hostility and anger were the only acceptable solutions, was protecting the only person on the earth who acknowledged the heart of the Revolution, looked the Revolution in the eye, and, God help her, volunteered to join the Revolution: Sandy. So listen: while She was wrong, She was also right. She was wrong and right. That’s how She’s always been, and that’s how She’ll always be. Now, unlike then, She (still me) now recognizes a little more fully the rights in her wrong and the wrong her rights. I love the wrongandright She (me) was, but when I reflect on her I often cannot help but see how the dominoes fell as a consequence of her (my) choices.

There were many who got The Ultimatum from me, either directly or indirectly. My sister, for instance, got it when she asked me to come to her graduation ceremony without Sandy. My father got it when he tried to make what he claimed were logical arguments against our age difference (i.e., that my lack of experience was reason enough to abandon the relationship, that marriage at a young age traps a person for life and prevents them from fulfilling their dreams and aspirations, that I was not capable of making any decisions or taking any risks until I gained some kind of surreal experience gained only through a lack of all risk and decision). My high school friends got it when they didn’t show any desire to or interest in getting to know Sandy. My mother got it, more than anyone, when she aggressively tried to verbally abuse me into stopping what I was doing (i.e., “Jessica, do you know why your teachers will not meet with you for dinner with Sandy? Do you know why your friends no longer call you? It’s because they think what you’re doing is WRONG and DISGUSTING. She is brainwashing you, Jessica. Sandy is a sick, sick woman. And now you’re becoming just as sick as her. ONE DAY YOU WILL SEE, JESSICA. You will see that I am right. You will see that this lifestyle, being with an OLDER WOMAN WHO IS USING YOU FOR SEX, will destroy you. You will see that you will LOSE EVERYONE YOU LOVE because NO ONE wants to be around to see the SICK things that are going on between you. No one wants to be around Sandy. I don’t want to get to know her. I will never get to know her. I will never have her in this house. If you EVER try to have her in this house, I will call THE POLICE, Jessica. You are a SICK, WEAK, TWISTED little girl. Something is wrong with you that you do this. Do you think this is NORMAL? Do you think anyone else is going to think this is normal or okay? They WON’T, Jessica. Even your friends, or Sandy’s friends, who act like they think it’s okay DO NOT really think it’s okay. They are just LYING because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, Jessica. CAN’T YOU SEE THAT? You are going to lose everyone in your life. You are going to end up VERY lonely, JESSICA. I can tell you that!” But, F.Y.I, my mother has since come a long way from these early moments of bullying that she used in order to torment me into leaving Sandy.)

The ultimatum (accept Sandy and me with open arms and a smile on your face or wish me well and say goodbye) felt like the right thing to do, the only thing to do, at the time. And it probably was the right thing to do. I was defending and standing up for the person I loved. OF COURSE I WOULD do that. But it was also very sad for me, as I felt disconnected from everyone but Sandy. Sandy’s friends, on the other hand, all welcomed me with open arms. Her colleagues and friends were my main social connections at that time, and still are. My family came back into the picture, and I am very grateful for that. One major reason why I encouraged Sandy to apply for (and accept) a job in Western Illinois was because I felt so disconnected from everyone I had ever known or cared about (from People in General). My isolation made me even more dependent on Sandy, and moving only increased that dependence. So a move toward independence has been a long time comin’. I don’t see independence as being synonymous with having a support system outside of Sandy in place; there are other dimensions of this issues, mainly emotional ones, that have yet to be unfolded and explored. I know there were people who could love and accept Sandy and me as a couple when we were first together, but I didn’t manage to bring any into our lives until a couple of years later. Regardless of my introversion, social otherness, social laziness, or one-on-one preference for all social endeavors; I know that a mind governed by ultimatums will not be a very content mind.

While those close to me got the spoken and unspoken ultimatum, those not-so-close to me grew distant in other ways. Regardless of whether or not an ultimatum was involved, during the early period of our coupledom I felt isolated from the rest of the world. I did not blame Sandy at all, in fact it brought me even closer to her and bonded us in the most awesome of ways. To state the obvious, I blamed Everyone Else. For not making an effort to welcome Sandy into their lives, for not understanding our need for warm and welcoming people who could love us and accept us as we were, for not reaching out to us, for abandoning us. I don’t know how much of it was “real” and how much of it was self-imposed. I do know that my perception was that it was Sandy-and-me-against-the-world (and fuck ‘em for their ignorance!). What I felt, at the core, was hurt. It may have been that I abandoned the world, since I had been heading in that direction since my high school graduation. Or it may have been what I perceived it to be: misunderstanding and fear. Or it may have been something else: the natural transition from young adulthood into adulthood, in which a person narrows her social circle to consist of relationships with close friends and family (as well as with colleagues). It’s true that I was in an unconventional situation. I am somewhat of an unconventional sort of person. Unfortunately one of the things that makes me an unconventional sort of person is that I am generally unmotivated to socialize and so I depend on socialization built into the landscapes of my life (social opportunities available at school, etc). I had that going at Niagara University to an extent. I made friends and enjoyed their company during and a bit outside of classes. However they did not know Sandy. They did not go out of their way to know Sandy. They did not go out of their way to welcome her into their world. And how could they?

It was so outside of their realm of normalcy to welcome an almost-fifty year old woman into their world. And then, on the other end of it, there was my contribution to my isolation. A big one, in fact. I didn’t feel like I had much of anything in common with most of the people I met who were my age in school. When they talked about going to get hammered at some party in the dorms, I couldn’t have been more opposed or uninterested. I wanted, instead, to sit and read and drink tea by the fire. When they talked about meeting up for a study session, I wanted to stay in my dorm room and study alone so that I could write poetry and dance in between chapters. I have always felt like an outsider since I was a kid. All signs point to Outsidership. I don’t know which came first: outsider status or an internal outsider characteristic. Being an outsider means having outsider privilege – whatever THAT means! Outsider privilege to create a life out of being an outsider? The questions remain: Am I an outsider because THEY didn’t and couldn’t understand me or am I am outsider because I didn’t and couldn’t understand them? Am I an outsider because I’m genuinely uncommon or am I am outsider because I have an ego-complex and THINK I’m an outsider? A grain of truth in every thing implies that the only whole truth that exists is the whole of every thing. In you and me, in our perceptions, there is only a grain. Yet so often we think we possess more than the grain. What fools! Ah, well, aside from the reflection on my isolation and its single grain of truth; what I do know, in my grain of truth, is that multiple factors led up to this moment, right now, in which I am waking up thinking and spending my day writing about isolation. I do know by now that I am very selective when it comes to deeply being interested in other people. It’s not something I’m proud of.

It isn’t that I don’t find people fun and interesting; it’s just that I go into most situations assuming the worst about people. And the worst, to me, might not be the same as the worst to you. The worst to me just means that they will be even more narrow, limited, hypocritical, ignorant, “right,” dishonest, self-serving, self-motivated, insensitive and self-preserving than I am. I do my best and I think I do pretty well compared to most (self-deception likely, indeed). I fell in love with my wife, Sandy, not simply because she was in love with me and we were attracted to each other, but also because I knew she was both philosophically and psychologically similar to me and far smarter than me. I knew she was the smartest person I had ever met. When I say smart, I mean something very grand and multidimensional and spiritual. I have known a lot of smart people. People with unbelievable memories, people with astounding talents, people who can ace any exam, state any rule, recite any poem, explain any diagram. I haven't met many people who understand me. Or, let me rephrase, I haven't met many people who I believe are capable of understanding me (who I believe understand me). I have met plenty of people who claim to know and understand me very well. But I never believed any of those people. Internally, I go by the mantra, "If you think you know me, you don't know me at all." All my life, I felt like people wanted to fit ME into THEIR grand-scheme, instead of seeing me as being a separate being that has my own scheme. I have perceived the world as being very selfish - and being incapable of seeing me, knowing me, understanding me or accepting me because of this limiting selfishness. So do I look "down" on others? It's not down, no. I look at others as others and me as me. Or I look at me as The Other and others and Them. Am I really just an Us and Them kinda gal, after all? I'm stumped. I'm just trying to figure all this out as I write this. I always tell Sandy not to take my words too seriously. That goes for you, too. I think things out as I speak. I often start out saying I'm one way and end up saying I'm just the opposite. I'm never decided or decisive about anything. (But I do seek out people who are and I can easily lead people to believe that I am.) My mind-changing happens in any kind of self-disclosing situation - even in a blog. Oy, where was I going?

Here, maybe. I have met some interesting folks, I haven't come across many people who ASTOUND me. Who teach me something I didn't already know about, who share something VITAL with me. I am astounded by wisdom, insight, open mindedness, philosophical understandings, and unselfishness. I am more than anything astounded by the experience of RELATING on a deep level to someone other than myself. Would you know - my Witch was the FIRST person to whom I ever RELATED. She was the first person I thought I related to. Better said, she was the first person I thought could relate to me. She was the first (and at that time the only) person with whom I thought I could share mutual understanding and mutual love and mutual acceptance. And so you see, she was better to me than my religion had ever been. She showed me a reflection of my heart and who I was becoming. She was the rarest thing I had ever found. There she was, so rare and so beautiful and so perfectly acceptable, beholding all of the things that I was beholding. She came out and said, "Hi, I'm different." She alluded to being a witch. She shared her stormy self. And I, for the life of me, was dumbfounded by how one person could possess something that NO ONE ELSE I had ever met possessed. She WAS different, she was rare, she was a witch. I was different, I was rare, I was a witch. Of course, as the lesson in life would have told if it had its chance to tell, the two of us would likely have found and had to contend with the inevitable differences BETWEEN us. But in the world up until that time, there was no one I knew of who could know me, know my soul, accept me, accept my soul. There was no one until her. And you see, that is why I will never let go of my Witch. She and I are of the same "nature"/"constitution"/"soul"/"spirit." It is a rare thing to cross paths with something/someone like that (so life changing and so constant). I went away from THAT back into the world of Otherness, once again. It was so painful. Can you imagine having to walk away from your nature/your constitution/your soul/your spirit? Can you imagine trying (and failing) to walk away from your SELF - from the only person with whom you ever stood a chance at sharing mutual understanding? I went to Hampshire College, for God's sake. It was the place for Rich Kids who are Different. (I couldn't afford to go there, but I thought it was the path back to my Witch...mercy, mercy). I went to Hampshire College hoping there might me someone there, like my Witch, with whom I could cross paths. (Did I tell you one of my favorite childhood books was "Sam, Will you Cross Me?") Was there a Someone who could cross me at Hampshire? There wasn't.

I was there only (lonely) for a short time. I went back home, defeated by a case of "I Miss my Witch Depression." What did I come home to? The same old loneliness. But the loneliness was interrupted by another "supernatural" event in my life. It was interrupted because I met another astounding person, my Vanguard (Sandy). I had thought, before I met my Vanguard, that my Witch was the only person with whom I could ever find safety and acceptance. My Witch was the only one until I met my Vanguard. (I know, who ever believed in second chances? A creative, literary, women-centered witch with a bewitching aesthetic like no other and an exceptional ability to make her service work a work of art and a vanguard with an unimaginable ability to synthesize and streamline various bodies of knowledge while also upholding ideals, leading through action and lending her services where they cannot be seen.) As far as interpersonal relationships and inner work and psychological and philosophical wisdom are concerned, no one holds a candle to my Vanguard. I dare you to try. It wouldn't matter if you won on someone else's scorecard. To me, Sandy will always win. She has an inner wisdom, tenderness and beauty that is more beautiful than any talking-head could possess on their best and most brilliant day. Alas, let us remind ourselves (let me remind myself): No one can be everything to everyone. My Witch has a lot of qualities that are winners in the romantic corner of my mind. Her aesthetic and intellectualism, as well as her humanitarianism and refinery, are, to me, attractive. My Vanguard is not a performer, she is as real as it gets. She's grounded and simple and modest about her intellectualism - she is as unselfish and service-oriented as it gets. My Witch’s aesthetic and intellectualism are rooted in the liberal and creative arts. My Vanguard possesses an entirely different kind of intellectualism, one that is technical and rooted in science, philosophy and practicality. Both of them, despite their many differences, are principled, ethical and service-oriented individuals. I guess I have the best of both worlds, in a way. Or at least in this moment of speaking. The best, yes, because now I go through life with my Witch offering me loving wisdom from behind and my Vanguard in front of me, leading the way to all the things I am and hope to be. I will always keep both of them with me. They are two halves of my heart and they have things to teach me about myself. I like to think that perhaps I am leading my Witch as I follow my Vanguard. Where we are going, only time will tell.

I see us, sometimes, as embodiments of our astrological elements (I know, sue me, I’m going to go batty on you for a moment). I, my Self, am of the Air. My intellectualism is generated through the lofty and abstract realm where all things I think, study and do are suspended in an ethereal state as art and beauty and love. I read and learn and study and do because it takes me higher. I desire, often, to go beyond myself and my own perception. I read and study to make art about the beauty and love that makes my soul soar. I often try to go beyond myself, believing, despite all rationality, in limitlessness. My Vanguard, who is of the Earth, is grounded in the learning environment that is right at her fingertips. As an embodiment of Earth, she needs both Air and Water for intellectual growth, and she achieves her potential for growth most successfully when the Air and Water in her life are in balance. My Vanguard appreciates balance, and her intellectual endeavors are often as balanced and grounded as she is, so long as the elements around her are in balance. When she reads, she reads for the moment of pleasure. She appreciates and creates art in domestic and work environments, where it also serves a practical purpose. She does not read or look for nuance in order to heighten her high or delve into the depth of her sorrow. She reads because she enjoys reading. Her intellectualism is generated from her own sense of groundedness in reality, rationality and reason. She knows her limits and does not strive to go beyond or beneath them. She does not desire to step in the water or fly through the sky, although she admires the water and enjoys the breeze from her place on land. She does not desire to get high or fly, she does not desire to dive deep or delve – she is content in whatever soil her feet are planted.

My Witch, in the depths of Water, generates her intellectual pursuit by touching the depths of what she finds beautiful: language and art. She assumes the role of aficionado and impresses others easily, not necessarily by perceiving herself as a deep thinker but by expressing a darkness and depth of thought that many others find impressive and fascinating. She is weighed down by the depths of her self, though she doesn’t always manage to use the grounded and grounding influences of Earth, such as rationality and reason, to access and utilize her depths. She is composed of Air and is segmented by Earth, but is, herself, denser. While she admires Air’s ability to freely express art and intellectualism; she tends to admire art from below and bring her deep understanding to the surface level. She reads and intellectualizes art in order to articulate, explore and express the depths of her self. (Even Romy, the woman I dated for a couple of months after high school, embodies well her astrological element: Fire!)

Okay, I’ve utilized my psychic abilities and astrological stereotypes for the first and last time. You can breathe a little lighter (or deeper or hotter or just stop breathing altogether) now. I know that I sound bound to a hierarchy of intellectualism and wisdom. I know that it sounds like I’m busy categorizing and labeling the pivotal individuals in my life in order to fit into some grand psychological-emotional schema. It’s true, I am. It's hard for me to get away with it. There's life in theory. And then there's life. The two inform one another, but rarely do they intersect. For instance, in theory I believe it is good for people to maintain their independence (living separately or having separate/defined spaces) while also engaging in various forms of relationships. I also, in theory, believe that Polyamory is a viable way of life and breeding place for honesty. However, neither of those theories are my realities. I have theories, I have dreams, I have delusions, and I have reality. Isn't it nice to have it all? Bwahahah. It's true. It's so true. My psychic renderings are, indeed, part of the picture of my life although they are not my reality. They are as accurate or inaccurate as any art that I perform or reflection I make. I’m right and I’m wrong, and if you can’t validate that or open your arms to me, then you can’t validate that or open your arms to me. I’ll still be here, right or wrong, true or untrue, self-isolating or not, weak and wavering or strong and solid. I will still be here. Trying to see people for who they are. Trying to see things as they really are. Trying to accept people the way they are and things the way they are. Still trying.

I Will Answer

2012-01-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

If you will safeguard me
against unwanted intrusion;
if you will watch
my unauthorized movements
from your home; if you will give
me a book on safety
and comfort upon my return;
if you will offer
me any part of the range
of yourself from simple
to advanced; if you're exceptional
enough to be blurry-eyed
to my contingencies;
if you've moved
forward in your ideals
and taken leaps in your design;
if you will take me
whole and see me with night
vision while I reach
into a darker view;
if I'm invisible
to me yet illuminated
to you in the heat
of me, the wavelengths
of me that no one can see
but you; if you keep an A-grade eye
out on me but I go on
never knowing that I can
trust you to keep me
safe and sound; if you strive
for growth and improvement
just as I do and sleeplessly
spend your nights
dissatisfied with the traces
of your mediocrity; if you know
that you're the only one
who can do this job,
who can see this through;
if you have what it takes
to give every person
what she deserves, even me
who wants too much
of you; if you've exhausted
yourself in an effort
to do the right thing
and you see me
grieving that it was wrong;
if you've committed
yourself to offering
your services to me
or to taking responsibility;
if you're hopeful that each
of us is making a difference
in the world; if you uphold
standards so high
you might never reach them
but you'll try; if your dedication
is evident yet I doubt
it so much that I spend
time dissecting the trivialities;
if you want to serve
me as I wish to serve you;
if a phone call is all it takes
to start the automation
of my homeland, then will
you do me this service
and call me today. Sleep
with one ear to the night
and you will hear it: I have
been calling for a lifetime,
I have been summoning
my shower wall, I have been holding
out for a sign
of life, I have been home
and back again with a world
of torture in my breast. It sounds,
it sounded, the resonation
of sound sounded but I am far
from the home in your view
and I've been cast
into a home of slender hope,
a sounding in the distant, direst reaches
of my ringless incertitude.

I want to hear what I cannot.
If you're really there,
I want to hear from you.

If you make the call,
I will answer.

The Lesbian Lawyer who wanted to be a Counselor who wanted to be a Performer who wanted to be Famous for Anything who wanted to be a Writer who wanted to be a Judge

2012-01-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

This was my guide and partner, Sandy's, response, after I read her aloud my first discussion entry on body piercings for my online Abnormal Psychology class: "That was a comprehensive and exhaustive response...Are you sure you don't want to be a lawyer?" Then she said, "I'll just call you Perry Mason." I said, "I wanted to be a judge when I was little, remember?" She said, "Yeah, well, I think you have to work your way up. You can't go to Judge School."

It's true that as soon as someone speaks or writes or breathes, I mentally prepare to "take them down" (in writing or in oratum). Sometimes I don't know what I want to do or where I'm going. Maybe I'm a lawyer at heart? Or maybe I'm just a power-lovin' judge at heart? Or maybe at heart, I'm really None-of-the-above but I have the body and mind of a legal advocate. I have the spirit of a fierce advocating "tear you to shreds" kinda lawyer, but I also hate in-person confrontation and I smile and laugh out of anxiety too much.

Actually, I prefer to do all of my defending in writing. In person, I'm more docile and easy-going (but if you ask my immediate family members, they may offer a different perspective. Ahem). So what am I? I was a lawyer in my English classes (on paper AND in class), I'm sort of a kind of unorthodox lawyer in my poetry. And now, I'm a lawyer in my Psychology courses as I prepare to become some kinda Clinical Psycho. I mean, Psychologist. Why can't I figure out what I wanna/gotta be when I grow up?

Any thoughts about this? If I don't receive any feedback on this matter, I'll get you (my pretty) and your little dog, too! But that's not a threat and you aren't You. And I have no knowledge of Law (other than the Law and Ethic of my Cunt) to defend any thing I have said, am saying or will say. But if you try to argue with me, even with The Law in your court, I won't go down without an overtly feminist and oddly rational keyboard bangin' fight.

------------ See Below for My Discussion Response to Abnormal Psychology Class Topic --------------

Many theorists worry about a growing trend toward “victimization” in our society, a tendency to portray undesirable behaviors as inevitable or uncontrollable consequences of early mistreatment or societal stress. What might be some of the dangers of over-applying the “victim” label?

When theorists equate the trend of "shirking responsibility" with "victimization," they are incorrectly confusing two distinct and asymmetrical issues. There is no over-use of "victimization" because "victimization" itself is not debatable. A person is either a victim or not a victim. If a person is pathological liar and claims to be a victim, then we might question whether or not he is a victim (based on our knowledge of him as a pathological liar). Regardless of what we believe and what he tells us, his actual LIVED PAST (which is not accessible to us in the present outside of his narrative, unless it was caught on video - in which case, other gray areas regarding victimization would arise) is the ONLY determiner of his victimization. If he suffered an abuse of some form or another, to any degree or in any context, then he is a victim of abuse. The issue that the theorists seem to be raising is NOT actually about victimization (the act of one victimizing another being), but about a mentality of irresponsibility that informs a growing trend of the misperception of victimization.

In order to begin to approach the questions that Dr. H-R has raised, we need to first consider definitions of victimization. So far, I am not finding a clear and clean and easy definition. I suppose that helps to explain why it is so difficult to answer questions definitively about victimization. Victimization can take on many forms and can occur in many contexts and can be perceived or misperceived on many levels. Victimization may involve a range of injustices: from some benign form of unfair treatment, such as is present in favoritism, to a great ethical breach to an extreme violation of a social rule in which a victimizer commits an injustice (or harm) against a victim. Is victimization determined by the consequence or upon the action/interaction itself? Again, this leads us into philosophical and legal terrains. Who holds the victimization card? Who gets to say what is and is not victimization? It just reemphasizes the issues that exist on a grander scale - issues of perception. Each of us perceives the world in a unique light, through our own experiences, the make-up of our brain and our individuality/personality. Each of us possesses our own, unique perceptive lens through which we define and judge the world that we see-and-perceive. We can never truly see the world outside of our own lens, and so we are cripplingly limited in our ability to define anything for anyone (even for ourselves). A written definition is created in order to create a standard, or shared idea, among a community of individuals. The limits of any definition for a word/concept, "victimization" included, will always arise out of one mutually agreed upon world view. Just because a consensus exists does not mean it holds rights over a concept or is not limited in its consideration or application of that concept. Each of us is going to write about this topic (which I, through my lens, see as being about the prevalence of irresponsibility in the Western World) in her own singular way.

From my perspective, victimization can be looked at from three (if not more) directions: from the perspective of the supposed victim, from the perspective of the supposed victimizer and from the perspective of those on the outside (direct or indirect witnesses). A person who does not see herself as a victim may still, indeed, have been victimized. A person who sees herself as a victim feels like a victim. She experiences herself as a victim, or as having been victimized. Whether or not we, as witnesses, believe that the situation in which she earned the label of victim warranted that label; she, herself, still feels suffering because of some injustice in the past or present that she perceives. Regardless of the situation itself, someone who believes she is a victim is a victim (yes, even if she is only a victim of herself, of the oppressive mentality of victimization that renders her the victim and contributes to some part of her suffering and perception as having been harmed). In this sense, we are all, by some cause or another, victims. We all experience suffering, sometimes because of harm that another intends to commit against us and sometimes because of random circumstance.

Since we can never truly know the root of our suffering (or of our consciousness or of anything, really), then we cannot really know the root or validity of victimization. We can, however, separate the common concept of victimization from the concept of unethical behavior. We can expand our view by considering that people who commit unethical actions or unjust abuses against others can ALSO be victims. There are victims who commit abusive offenses against others and there are perpetrators who have abusive offenses committed against them. For as many different kinds of people there are in the world, there are as many different kinds of victims - because people are victims and victims are people. As we know, it is very common for a perpetrator to have been a victim in childhood. There are people who intend to victimize others and there are others who victimize by default. We cannot pinpoint WHO victims are or WHAT victimization looks like.

There are no dangers in over-applying the victim label. There are dangers in excusing and dismissing behaviors that are harmful to a society in which the values of democracy and fairness are upheld. There are dangers in enabling DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR. There are no dangers in over-applying a label ("victimization"). The label exists because we, as humans, have no better way of understanding or articulating our the dimensions of our existence that cause our suffering. There exists no trend in "victimization," although it is entirely possible to consider, separately from the topic of victimization, a trend in irresponsibility.

To make it short and simple, for those who like it that way: There is a danger in confusing victimization with irresponsibility. In a Clinical context, I content that over-applying the victim label is not harmful but that excusing unhealthy behaviors for any reason would be disconcerting.

------------ See Below for My Discussion Response to Abnormal Psychology Class Topic --------------

In the Western world, body piercing is a fad. In other countries it marks status and may be performed as a ritualistic ceremony. Some research suggests that numerous body piercings may be a form of self-mutilation. Is body piercing a form of self-expression? Can we use our bodies as a canvas to express ourselves or is it an indicator of mental illness?

I anticipate that many of us will continue coming back to the underlying difficult nature of determining or classifying abnormality. The process of defining something as abnormal, from a clinical perspective, is complex and can be explored through many perspectives. At each level of our understanding of normality, we are faced with having to break down that given dimension of "abnormality" in order to determine through which angle we are going to view it. It is so very complicated. I think a comprehensive approach is necessary in order to treat the labeling of an individual or a behavior as abnormal. Although a comprehensive approach is much more difficult and requires the ability to have a wide and versatile view of human behavior; it seems to be the most effective (although perhaps not the most efficient) and helpful way of dealing with the difficulties of addressing the concepts and realities of abnormality and mental illness. The way in which we view any behavior, including body piercing, will be informed by the way in which we view the many intricacies of abnormality. It is difficult to address "body piercing" as a whole (as one, singular category of behavior) because there are so many things to consider about the "behavior" itself. Dr. H-R's set of questions highlight the many forms that the behavior of body piercing might assume as well as the many contexts in which they may or may not exist.

Even when we have information about the cultural or social context, we still are left with other questions (other levels to explore) regarding the individual. Even when we have information about the individual, we still are left with various avenues (life experiences, possible trauma, details about the piercing history itself) to explore. Just like the patters of the returns to and exits from the institutionalization of (and to institutionalized practices in regard to) abnormal individuals, I see the academic (and/or clinical, and/or qualitative) study of abnormality as being in a transient and repetitive (if not cyclical) state. When I consider the way in which Halgin and Whitbourne introduce abnormality to us (linguistically, organizationally and conceptually), I imagine entering a large building (an asylum, if you will!) in which there, laid out before you, are a series of doors. When you enter one door, you end up in a room with one door behind you and several doors ahead of you - you can exit and return to the original entrance of doors to choose another door or you can move forward into one of the next doors. Through every door there awaits another group of doors. After you've entered so many doors, you might wish you could turn around and start all over again but it's hard to imagine going back through all the doors you entered. You may wish, at some point, that you had never entered the building (of knowledge/of theory/ of psychology/ of brain and behavior studies).

It seems there is a whole range of acceptable behavior and a much more narrow range of unacceptable behavior. And even when a majority renounces one behavior (or even one particular instance or form of that behavior), there may be credence to a minority voice that goes against the grain to defend that instance or form of behavior. In other words: it's hard to judge even when we have the most details we could hope for. All we CAN do, given that inescapable quandary, is try to have as comprehensive of an approach to abnormality as possible. Body piercing, like abnormality, can be many things. I don't feel comfortable making generalizations about what body piercing is or is not, given that it is so many things to so many different people. I do -believe- that we can use our bodies in order to express art, but I also -believe- that art is an outlet for creative thought and emotional expression. Think about it - creative thought and emotional expression are associated with the brain. So some might say that some art, as an extension of what is going on internally in our brain and body, expresses mental illness (or mental health!). I think the best we can do is pay attention to the case of the individual - to find out, as much as possible, how the behavior is affecting her life (and that is even more important, I think, than finding out or classifying what purpose she might say it serves). As stated in Chapter One of the text, there are four criteria used by Clinical Psychologists to determine whether or not a behavior should be considered "abnormal:" Distress, impairment, risk, and social or cultural standards for acceptable behavior. If I were to look at an individual and her relationship with body piercing, I would try to consider the role of distress (whether or not the behavior/relationship is causing distress, if it came about because of a distressing situation or if the act is sought out in moments of distress). If distress was a factor, my next step would be to determine whether or not the distress is intense enough to lead to an impairment in her ability to function (and at what level the functioning is at - which might be hard to determine in and of itself). If a degree of impairment is occurring, the next step would be to determine what, if any, risk the behavior might be causing her or others (and this, to me, seems like the paramount criterion...but I can imagine it would be difficult to determine the level of a given risk). And, of course, it is important to consider and evaluate the social and cultural context in which the behavior (body piercing) is occurring.

Ultimately, for me, I would be most concerned with the behavior if it was causing pain or risk or consternation to the individual receiving the piercings. Even if a person is piercing as an act of self-mutilation, the behavior might be more desirable than other self-mutilating acts the person might commit had they not had the piercing option. If the self-mutilating person were interested in exploring other options for dealing with the internal factor that might be contributing to the behavior, then it would make sense to offer alternative solutions. If a person feels good mutilating herself, then why stop her? Who is to say what is good or bad for her? If it IS impairing her ability to function, then that is a sign that something unhealthy is going on. However, if she enjoys the act and sees it as the healthiest possible way of "being herself" or "dealing with emotions," then who am I to do anything but offer her some alternatives and support her in a behavior that doesn't directly harm OTHERS (outside of the pierced individual). Who am I to say what is an unhealthy or healthy way of coping and surviving? If someone is suffering and wants to change, then there is an opportunity to work with her. If someone is causing others to suffer and doesn't want to change, then that brings up a whole other issue. If a girl's father says he is suffering because of her piercings, I would encourage the father to seek help rather than the daughter (or for both of them to seek help together). If the girl were trying to pierce her father in his sleep, then I would consider her an actual harm to his safety and to his right to privacy and to be safe from external harm - and so I would say that is where the law and legal boundaries should come in. It's so complicated and tiring to consider, but I have done my best with having read the first chapter.

I Still Have a Dream, Albeit a Redundant One: that We Can Be a Human Family

2012-01-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I would like to share my dreams with you. Well, one of them. Specifically the dream I had last night. I know what you're thinking: This is going to be long. Seven pages long, like my last blog? That took all morning. No, not this. This should be short. Less than three Word pages, at most. MLK Jr. had a dream, yes he did. Yes. He. Did. Does that mean he was perfect in all areas of his life? Certainly not. A beloved former Women's Studies professor of mine talked, once, about Martin Luther King's mistreatment and abuse of his wife, Coretta Scott King. She alluded to the idea that his own personal failings in his relationship with his wife (I don't believe she was referring simply to infidelity, I recall that she was specifically referring to domestic violence) were covered up by the Civil Rights and African American communities in order to maintain and protect his image and the power of his message. As a self-identified Feminist, I find it disappointing, though not surprising. Please take note that I am not making any claim of truth or trying to use slander to make a point.

Whether it was physical abuse or cowardly lying or something entirely different - the point is not in the details; it is in the lesson it teaches us about the imperfect nature of humanity. While I am not interested in nor do I have a way of verifying (I have tried) whether or not it is true that Martin Luther King Jr. abused Coretta Scott King, I am interested in the issues and questions it raises about the dimensionality and fallibility of all humans, even the most prophetic and inspiring. It is not out of the question to think that a Great (spiritual and political) Leader might have had his own share of personal struggles and contradictions. He was, in large part, in the business of Ideals. Whenever we're in the business of Ideals, we're also in conflict with that awful, unspeakable phenomenon called Reality. The Civil Rights movement did not initially take women's rights issues under its wing. It was just another level of hierarchical oppression to address that did not fit the agenda of the group in power. In the African American Movement, where women of varying races and ethnicities were both present and active, the voices of power came from those who were next in line to the heir of the European-American throne. Naturally, European American men and African American men were in the best position to uprise and demand equal treatment.

There are so many intricacies to the overriding and underlying hierarchies in which we still today function (or dysfunction, if we are lucky). The larger inequalities and varying relationship dynamics are accompanied by smaller, less-visible and more intricate inequalities and relationship dynamics. A hierarchy of any origin can always be broken down into smaller and smaller segments. If one movement develops out of inequality, oppression and the inhumane treatment of one group of marginalized people, essentially the inherent separatism of that given group will inevitably leave Others (any group of others or individual other) out. Just as a political, humanitarian movement arises out of the institutionalized oppressions of a hierarchical structuring of society; so, too, will the movement mirror, at least to some degree, similar structuring. Some communities (I won't call them groups) aim to work on another de-structure, re-structure, anti-structure, or socialistic plain of interaction in which individuals come together in a Utopian environment in order to seek the common good of all people. It isn't easy to do and often ends up showing its own glimmer of an order of power. I'm of the mind that we can deconstruct Power until the sun goes down and our universal brain turns to mush; but Power will always be at the center our internal self-oriented survivalist existence. Can we peacefully coexist despite this? It would be nice to think so.

For those of us who can imagine it, even though that's far from living it and doesn't even address the problem of those who cannot or do not wish to imagine it; we can only make small changes in our own lives to have any sort of tangible impact on the world outside of our selves. Within a movement, we can establish a socialist structure with rules and goals that increase our chances of and ability to maintain our ideals. However, what we cannot do (what goes against the very ideals we wish to uphold) is to delude ourselves, diminish or trivialize our constant survivalist urge, mischaracterize or falsify our struggle against our own nature (or, if it isn't our nature, then: what we have been for so long been indoctrinated intentionally or unintentionally into), buy into an ideology of duality (superiority versus inferiority), forget to value introspection and deconstruction, or reject constructive criticism in favor of blind self-inflation. The Cans are endless and exciting; yet the Cannots are vital reminders. Honesty, present in self and communal reflection, is the key to any kind of society that wishes to uphold ideals. That - and accepting all things, all behaviors, as HUMAN.

If we deny parts of ourselves (parts of our human existence - our natural tendencies, the notion that ALL things, even the urge to kill unfortunately, are NATURAL - existing frequently in the natural world). In a movement, all things are present (an entire spectrum of conduct and behavior). In a leader, all things are present (an entire spectrum of conduct and behavior, including contradiction). So it should not surprise or bother us so much that a prophet, such as MLK Jr., would have a secret life (i.e., a life) filled with an array of behaviors, including rage or violence, despite his non-violent rhetoric and non-violent public life. While they may not be the most popular or most widely understood; the most authentic and successful movements are those in which a high degree of transparency (even about the inevitable conflicts and contradictions) exist. (As an aside, I cannot wait to get a copy of Minnie-Bruce Pratt's "Inside the Money Machine!")

A few years ago when I was an undergraduate at Western Illinois University, I participated as a student-member on a panel addressing the intersecting or divergent relationship between the LGBTQIAetc (sexuality?) movement and the Civil Rights movement. I was asked to be on the panel because I was a student-member of UCOSO (University Committee on Sexual Orientation) and a member of Unity (student LGBTQIAetc campus group). Some of the questions posed to us were: Are they comparable, are they compatible, are they equivalent, are they intersecting, are they historically different or the same, are their goals and aims centered on the same principles, do they benefit from one another or detract from one another? The questions posed by the facilitator were intended to spark an audience-led panel forum and dialogue. Each of the panelists responded to a question, and then the facilitator welcomed members of the community (audience, listeners, people in the vicinity) to comment or pose questions in response to the intellectual contributions of the panelists. While I don't remember the specifics of the event, I do remember the a., high level of emotionality present, b., boundary-creating defensiveness, and c., contradictory, hierarchical ("us and them") mentality.

One of the opinions expressed by multiple audience members was this: that the Civil Rights movement cannot be compared to the LGBTQIAetc movement because racial, or ethnic, oppression and oppression on the basis of sexual orientation are, essentially, different. Now thaaaaat's a horse of a different color! The messages (which are probably word-for-word, though I wouldn't bet the life of my big toe on it): "Racism and homophobia are different." "They're not the same. We can't change the color of our skin." "If you're born black, you're born black. Being African American is not a choice. Being gay is a choice." "The histories are so different. Gay and lesbians weren't systematically oppressed in the same way that African Americans have been. The histories are different, you can't compare them." In response, I talked about the issue of "choice." I took a humanist and linguistic approach. As someone with a feminist-humanist perspective, as an English major and Women's Studies minor with a good deal of emotional intelligence and an interest interpersonal relationships, that was the only approach to the political and ethical issues involved that I had to contribute. I was more interested in the emotional response (emotional illogic?) that arose from the dialogue than the content (or lack of content) itself; however, I wished I been more prepared for it so that I would have been able to address the emotional issues via a technical (legal, historical) response in order to better emphasize how the Civil Rights movement and LGBTQIAetc movement can be connected by the way in which they address human rights (or a larger ongoing Human Rights movement).

Perhaps you might scoff at the idea of a Universal Human Rights movement (for fear that in order to do so a World Government would be necessary). I don't know about a World Government, but I do believe in Global Human Rights (NOT as a form of government, but as a movement based in making information accessible, encouraging humane treatment across the boards, offering collaboration across ethnic and other divides, and providing access, above all, to those things). If both movements come down to a basic desire for the law to protect and maintain humane treatment off all citizens (or of all "people"), then the issue of Choice (whether you choose to be non-heterosexual or not) is irrelevant. That's assuming that all human beings deserve to be treated equally under the law. But do laws determine what is what - what is ethical/inethical, what is acceptable/unacceptable? Is there something higher than the law? Is the law morality itself? If not the law, then what? God's word, maybe? (Please, no, because there are a few "Gods" out there. And last time I checked, they were saying different things and making different laws).

If there are to be Global Principles of Ethics for Human Beings, then who will write it and how will it be agreed upon and who will be in charge of it? The use of any rule, or committee assigned to the upholding of some arbitrarily agreed upon set of rules, creates a maze of power establishments and anti-establishments (including uprisings and rebellions). It seems doomed, yet still I support basic human rights. I have a sense of fairness and justice within that seems inherent ("Baby, I was born this way!"). I believe in as much transparency as possible (while also respecting individuals' self-chosen privacy boundaries). I believe in a definition of morality as: behaving with the aim of not doing harm to anyone, treating others as you would have them treat you (as much as it is possible), and making it your intention (!!!) to do as little harm as possible (when harm is necessary). I also know that "harm" is a difficult concept itself. We cannot control who we harm, because people perceive harm uniquely. You may think I am harming you by writing this article. I would argue that I am not harming you. Who is "right?" Who is harming and who is harmed? If I do not intend to harm, I may STILL harm you.

So, to me, morality comes down to intentionality. What happens, though, when you argue that I, Jess Mason McFadden, intended to slander MLK Jr? What happens when I maintain that I did not intend to slander his name? If I am telling the truth, how will you know? If I am lying, how will you know? I can tell you right now that I know I am telling you the truth (the truth of this ONE moment), but I cannot PROVE to you that it is the truth for me. And so if we cannot have any way of assuring The Truth in words or otherwise, then how can assure or ensure (or insure) anything? How can we trust in "the powers that be" if we cannot trust in ourselves, our words, our truths? It's all (i.e., reality) a mind-game - a language-game. I'd love to say I believe MLK Jr. spoke to a higher truth. I'd like to put him on a pedestal the way I put bell hooks or Oprah Winfrey or Hillary Clinton or whomever on a pedestal. But I know better (at least I think I know better). I deconstruct so much that I can no longer trust in any so-called truth. Still, I live in the moment and am very trusting of people in a day-to-day sense (just not in a global, philosophical sense). I love and admire hooks, Winfrey and Clinton but do I look to them for perfection, to agree with every opinion I have, to solve impossible problems? I don't. Their personal failings (not that I know of any :-) do not diminish the positive impact that they make on this World of Words.

Today we think about histories (and herstories) of oppression. Today we think about the courageous leaders, the Known and the Unknown, that have risen up and used their gifts and worked hard to stand not only against oppression but stand for and speak of (and try their personal best to uphold) the highest and most honorable values conceivable by human beings. I am a leader in my own right (or wrong). I have lead many times in my life when leadership was necessary. And now, I do my best to lead and assist my daughters (alongside my partner/their other mother) in finding their gifts, being their most authentic selves, and having a positive, loving impact during their time on Earth. During their short lives, they have already had an immense positive, loving impact on Earth. And I am so proud. They, like Martin Luther King (and like you and me) will have their dreams.

Not all dreams are created equal. Some wake us out of our sleep. Some make us want to stay asleep. Some dreams don't require sleep at all. Some come before us. Some come into us. Some leave us. Some aren't welcome or well-received. Some come true and we wish they hadn't. Some never come true but we realize that the chasing and the dream in and of itself is the Living Dream. Some speak to us in tongues. Some make us speak in tongues. Some just bring us to our knees. Some get us knee-deep in shit. Some take us above the clouds. Some come crashing down before they have a chance to fly. Some make us very lonely. Some bring us together. Some drive us to do things we never thought we could do. Some keep us so hard at work that we forget to live. Some make us millionaires. Some end up kicking us in the ass in the end. But there you have it: we all dream.

I don't have A (as in one universal philosophical) Dream. I have a lot of dreams. I dream awake and I dream asleep. I. Have. Dreams. The kind that occur during the REM phase of the sleep cycle. I had a dream. In the morning of last night. I want to share it. I'll be the first admit that I love dreaming. I don't like waking up crying from a nightmare (usually sugar-before-bed induced). Nightmares, for me, have been so infrequent lately, though, praise Dream-maker! I look forward to going to sleep to dream each night. I keep myself good company pre-slumber (as well as during slumber) most of the time. The dream I had on the morning of Martin Luther King Jr. Day took me to a diner. Here are the ordered bits and pieces (not of food at the diner, but of the dream itself), as I recall them. As it began, I was outside of the diner and an adolescent girl dressed in jeans and a leather jacket was chasing after me, trying to shoot me with a gun. I ran around the parking lot, dodging her bullets and hiding behind cars. I begged for her to spare my life. She swore at me and approached me, hitting me with the pistol and kicking me in the ribs but not shooting me within close range. She walked away from me, still calling me names and fighting all the air with aggression, anger and pain. I went into the diner to find someone who could help. I couldn't find anyone so I washed up in the restroom, and came out to sit down for a meal. Sandy was there. Sasha was there. (Sandy, my wife-partner; Sasha, my ghost witch). Sandy was sitting next to Sasha who was sitting next to her fiance. The Fiance was small and thin, like me, except his face was skinnier and more gaunt-looking. He had a nice smile, sort of. He had a long, skinny nose (like mine) but with an angular bump (not like mine). He was feminine and pretty, and I couldn't stand to look at him.

The three of them were sitting across from a very friendly looking woman, Sasha's mother, Jackie Paper. Sasha Paper looked young, like maybe she was in her mid-twenties. Jackie Paper looked like she was in her early sixties. Sandy looked like Sandy always looks to me: like Sandy. A face so familiar and soft and kind that I sometimes forget to look twice. The Fiance looked very young, the youngest of all. Standing up at the side of the table was a very unhappy-looking Mr. Paper. Mr. Paper, good old Bob Paper, was the oldest of all, probably in his early eighties. Mr. Paper was shorter than I had imagined. He was wearing maroon pants and maroon suspenders. Mrs. Paper was taller than I had imagined. (She let me call her Jackie.) She, while sitting, was taller than anyone at the table. She looked like an older Jackie Paperish version of Helen Reddy. She was wearing clothes that Helen Reddy would have worn in the seventies. Flares. We were clearly a family. I sat down with little discomfort. I was bruised, but no one acted like they saw anything. I knew Sandy knew, somehow, what had happened to me even though we did not talk about it. I felt like we were a perfect family, except for the Fiance. But I didn't even mind him that much. I didn't know if I was staring at a gay male version of myself or what, but he looked pinched - like a conceited and flaunting sort of liar. Sandy and I talked to Jackie Paper, who was funny and fun, telling her about "us" (our relationship, our marriage, etc). Jackie Paper was at ease and enjoyed talking to us. Sasha got up and stood over the Fiance. She leaned down and wrapper her arms around his neck. I looked at Sasha Paper and the Fiance with a look like "Are you KIDDING me?" The Fiance was sassy and the Sasha Paper was hanging over him. It was as if they were both asserting their heterosexuality. (It wasn't working, at least not in my eyes.) Jackie Paper, the light in my dream, wasn't bothered a bit by any of it - Sandy, Bruised-Me, Sasha or the gay Fiance.

But poor tortured, miserable Bobby Paper, who was by then reminding me of Frank Costanza from "Seinfeld" because he was so touchy, was not happy. He kept turning to look at us (as a table/family) and then turning away. He was up in arms, literally. Something about the table of us and about what was happening at the table (the "unspoken conversation") was bothering and distressing him deeply. He finally raised his hands into the air one final time and stomped out of the room, muttering to himself. I felt a little awkward, especially because Sasha Paper and the Fiance were completely unphased. Sandy seemed, at that point, a tad uncomfortable. But not much. I was more concerned and puzzled than anyone. I looked to Jackie Paper for answers. She took it all in stride and said, "Oh, him? Don't worry about Bob, he'll be fine. He just needs a little time. I'll talk to him." I looked over at Sasha and ignored the deceivingly happy face of the Fiance. I said to Jackie, "I can't believe how much they look alike. They look exactly alike. Their faces are nearly identical, except her hair is like yours and some parts of her face structure are like yours. Plus, she's tall like you. But other than that, she's practically HIM." Jackie and Sandy laughed. Sasha looked bothered. I said, "Oh look, she's getting annoyed. She IS just like him. She's even grumpy and bumpy, like him." Jackie found it funny. Sasha remembered that she had described her father to me that way, once. Then things got a bit more serious and indiscriminate.

The rest was a blur (i.e., is gone from my memory). The next part of the dream sequence that I remember is that a bunch of men in parked cars were trying to kill me. Every car I encountered had a man who wanted to kill me in it. I was on the run in an endless parking lot of killer cars when I woke up this morning and thought about Martin Luther King Jr. But what I remembered, or what I wanted to remember, was the table in the diner with an unlikely "family."

"I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." King's rendering of Isaiah 40:5

A Mother Who Tries.

2012-01-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

Today is Friday, January 13 2012. It’s a very special day. When my mom called this morning, she asked if we got Darah a present for her birthday. I suddenly felt anxious, self-proving and self-doubting. No we hadn’t. I started blabbing on about how Darah had just had the onslaught of birthday and Christmas gifts in Buffalo, that we had a tea party with Adam and Elisa yesterday during which Darah opened two gifts, that I made chocolate chip cookies with the girls yesterday, that I bought stuff for Darah and Elanah to make their own pizzas. Yada, yada, yada. Then I stopped myself. I should have stopped myself before I started. All I needed to say was, “No we haven’t.” I could have left it to her to respond in her own way, instead of trying to anticipate what she was thinking and how she would feel about it. Am I such a weak and wavering person that I cannot decide for myself how I feel about Darah’s birthday? Are my decisions always made out of anxiety about how someone else, Sandy or my mother or someone in the sky, will interpret and feel about it? I guess so. Bummer! I would tell to myself, “I gotta be stronger than this,” but that would just be more down-talk. It’s better than the onslaught of escapist and avoidant excuses. It’s better than the manipulation that I am so tempted to perform.

So what do I want to do for Darah’s birthday? Here’s how I REALLY see it (I think. I hope. Hell, who knows if it really is – what a joke, to suggest that I know something). Here are the facts, the details about Darah’s birthday thus far. Darah’s Aunt Missy had an amazing two-part celebration for her in Buffalo in December. She (Missy) paid and made arrangements for the extravaganza at Chuck E. Cheese. It included all of the cheesy trimmings (literally, the salty cheese on the pizza was included) and loud noises that a kid could ask for. As if that wasn’t more than enough already, Missy and Brian had us over their house for a birthday sleepover (a big slumber party with siblings and parents and even one grandmother scattered around the Osterhaut). Missy spent all day cleaning her house to make it nice and special for Darah. My mother had a specially ordered strawberry Coldstone cake decorated just as Darah ordered. I mean, requested! To top it off, Melissa decorated the upstairs bedroom with streamers, balloons, colored lights, books, and toys (yes, even beanbags from her sixth grade classroom). Darah got to have a sleepover with her fun and festiveAunt Missy and her older cousin, Rachel. Her fourth birthday was a dream come true, thanks to Aunt Missy who loves her nieces to pieces and did her sister a huge favor. Am I taking the lazy way out by not decorating and doing the party (part II) thing? I don’t think so. Darah has already had the extended family bash and the extravagant fun. Darah has already opened loads of material gifts.

What can I do for Darah that she hasn’t already had on her fourth birthday? I can spend time with her, which is what she loves best. When I agree to play with Darah, she rejoices and runs to kiss and thank me. I can tell her stories (what she calls “Stories from Mouth”) about when she was little, and about all of her past birthdays. I can make her pizza stations when she makes herself a pizza. I can close my laptop and pile up on the couch with Darah, Elanah and Sandy to watch a movie and snack on popcorn. Whether or not those things are costly, those are the things that bring Darah the most lasting and meaningful joy. If Darah had her heart set on a material gift then my focus would be on that, too. If I saw something that Darah would really enjoy (like “Matilda” or a box of Skittles), I would wrap it up for her. If she hadn’t already had balloons and if Gramma Sue weren’t sending more, I would put up balloons. But given the circumstances, this part of her birthday doesn’t need to involve another material gift. I like the idea of action-oriented gifts. I also like recipient-centered gifts. These are my gift-giving aspirations. Darah’s heart is not set on material gifts, her heart is set on family.

Last night before bed, she said to us, “Yay. Tomorrow is my birthday! That means I get whatever I want. Momma Si, you told Mommy on her birthday that she could do whatever she wants. I get to do whatever I want, too.” Sandy said, “Oh yeah? What do you want to do?” Darah wiggled excitedly and said, “I want to watch a movie with my family. And I want to play a board game. With my whole family!” She told us what mattered to her. When she tells me something, I want to listen. I try to listen and I will continue to try to listen to her, despite all the other voices in my head that tell me what I should or should not be doing. I want to give Darah the best gift I can give her: a mother who tries to listen to her. She isn’t the same person as me. If I like lots of material gifts and traditional festivities (I won’t say whether or not I do because it varies...but mostly I do like some of the extravagance), it’s about me (not her). I want to try to let Darah tell us who she is. I want her to figure out for herself who she is and what she likes on her birthday instead of dictating it for her so that she doesn’t know who she is or what she likes. That’s not easy. If you think I’m ambivalent about all of it, it’s because I am (a highly ambivalent, indecisive, conflicted person). Writing helps me to sort my thoughts in times like these so I can start, or at least start to attempt, to filter out some of the crap I'm telling myself from my true values and beliefs. But, without all the crap what's left is: Darah. It’s Darah’s birthday. It’s Darah that matters. It’s who Darah is, and not what she does or what she gets, that matters.

Darah was born four years ago at 5:30 PM on this day (except it was on a Sunday). I’m sure almost every parent feels this way, but it’s true: I cannot believe that Dar has been with us for four years. That’s almost one seventh of my lifespan. That’s one forth of the way to her sixteenth birthday. WAH! How can this be? I feel like it was just yesterday that the nurse brought us our long bundle of baby with wild dark hair, with her wide and flat nose, her pouty lips and her giant eyes. I feel like it was just yesterday that I held her on my warm deflated and contracting belly, moments after she was born, to breastfeed her. She came out of the womb and assumed a state of contentment almost immediately. I didn’t have to do any work to breastfeed her, it came naturally to her. I stared down at her and stroked her cheek. I said all that I could say to capture what I felt. The love was repetitious and simple. “Oh, Sweetie.” “I love you.” “I love you.” “We love you so much.” “Your so precious.” “You’re so perfect.” “Hi Baby.” “You’re our baby.” “You’re such a perfect angel.” She came into the world around suppertime on a Sunday, and her cries were mild gurgles. We were wonderstruck with love, it’s true. My hormones were doing all the right things (and boy does THAT sound like a freak occurrence). It was just the three of us and a few supportive nurses. That was how it all started. Our life with Darah. Now, four years later, we have a Darah and an Elanah. It’s not necessary but it feels good to share how lucky we feel, how much joy and love they bring into our worlds.

Overcoming or Comingover 2011, Riding through 2012

2011-12-23T23:23:00.000-08:00

A quick (i.e. not a thirty page) blog on Christmas Eve. It's 12 AM on Christmas Eve at my home on the West Side and 1 AM on Christmas Eve at my home on the East Side. I feel very good, I am surrounded in close proximity to many of the people I hold nearest and dearest. It's Chicken (or, better yet, Miso) Soup for the Anxious Soul. It's always a little magical for me to be with my family, immediate and extended and extended extended...just to have them all near is enough to be magical. Sights and sounds are also part of the magic. Between being ever-so-erotic and being ever-so-nostalgic, I'm pretty much overcome (by something or another) all the time.

So as I approach 2012, I sum up the past year in one word: Overcome (overcoming, overcame, overwent, overthehill, overspent, overgone, goneover, but mostly overcome). At many times, over come by amazing, strong and wonderful feelings, joy, elation, gratitude, wonder, sensuality. At other times, overcome with stress, distress, depression, difficulty, mentally erected mountains to face or climb or just look up at or turn away from. Life is so much about all of these contrasts (not contracts) and contradictions. I was overcome by FEELING this year. I was overcome by feeling today and tonight. Today in the car, with Sandy and the girls, I listened to music, and I was overcome. Heather Nova's "Like Lovers Do" really did it for me. I felt like I was "on high" with the angels listening to and singing with her in the howling choruses (welcome to Chasewood Lane, where two beagles named Scamper and Stella reign supreme over all...peaceful ears).

Even before we began our travels this morning, I was overcome by a dream. I had a dream, before I woke up naturally without alarm at 5:30 AM. The dream was significant and profound, so, of course, I was overcome by it. And gladly. In the dream, I was a grown woman at some sort of Girl Scout conference at a college campus. I was a Girl Scout leader of some form or another. The Girl Scout (i.e. child) in my care and staying in my hotel room was a little girl of seven or eight years old. Not just any little girl, she was my high school English teacher. As a little girl. In little girl form. It was Portia Eisenberg as a child. I knew her real name in the dream and called her by it. I will refer to her as Sasha here. I knew Sasha was who she was. I somehow had foresight (I always do in my dreams) that allowed me to be both in the present moment of the dream and also in my present psyche of 2011. I found out the little girl was Sasha, and immediately I went to her and requested that she be placed in my care and put in my room. I was, by the Girl Scout Authorities, charged with helping her choose a college to attend. I already knew she was going to end up at Cornell, but I was thrilled to show her around other campuses, knowing how smart she was and how much she was going to enjoy her time at college (indulging in "milk and cookies" - well, well, I always thought masturbation and legal/illegal drugs had better symbolic names). As I was arranging our plans in my head, though, I was feeling guilty, like a pedophile luring his prey; but I justified it to myself by telling myself that it was not because she was a child that led me to "taking her in" but because I knew who she would become and that we would eventually love each other and that eventually she would be my superior.

Okay, so this dream like so many of my dreams was fucked up, you might say, but let me continue. She was in her child form, but I knew she was the Sasha that I loved; and that -knowing- both drew me to her and also tormented me. What the hell was I going to do? If you were in your dream and you had power over the person who held and holds power over you (the person you loved and love very much), ask yourself: what would you do? I looked at child-her, child-Sasha, and I just felt so much love. I was, ahem, overcome. Not because I was attracted to her child-body, but because I knew and loved the adult woman she would become. Am I making any sense? No? Good, I'll continue. Sasha was standing in the room alone with me, and I looked at her and tried to connect with her to let her know who I was and would be to her. She was clueless. She was just a little girl who wanted to sit down with me and have me read to her. I hugged her and told her how much I loved her, and she smiled and felt happy. However, I recognized that there was no depth, no need, no romance, no anything but a child who was happy to have someone caring for her and paying attention to her. I knew in that moment that I could take advantage of her to try to fill my own inner void (that I could use the child vulnerability and innocence and powerlessness) to make myself feel better...to resolve my inner conflict...to try to make MY self feel loved. But when I looked into her eyes and saw that she was completely unaware of all-things-romantic and not ready in any way whatsoever to handle adult conversation or adult emotions; I realized that I only wanted to do what was right and best for her, that she was incapable, at that stage in her development, of engaging in reciprocal love and affection and sharing with me.

It felt so awkward on so many levels: to be even having these thoughts in regard to a child (if she were any other child, I would be going to see a shrink instead of doing dream analysis a la blogosphere). I felt so sad, too, because I finally had my one chance to try to be her equal, and, damn, I still wasn't her equal. This time, instead of being the "child" (ha, was I ever really one of those? Surely I am more the child today than I was back then.), I was the "adult." We switched roles. I was in her shoes, except I was ME in her shoes and she was SHE in my shoes...EXCEPT that she was a much, much younger version of me/she in my shoes (oh, I'm losing track of who is who, as usual...the roles, the shoes that don't fit...). I held her tightly but all that I saw in response was a child with simple needs and all I saw in me was a woman with complex needs that could not be met by a child. Suddenly, my actions toward her changed. I was motherly and loving, but my needs were not at the forefront. I knew that, regardless of my own inner torment or how I felt or how I loved and needed the adult her, she needed me to do what was best for the present child-her. I realized she did not yet have the knowledge or insight to engage with me as an equal, and that to do what was best for her was to remain a loving but motherly presence in her life until she was ready, mature and insightful enough to actually be a viable part of the relationship. I knew how hard it was for me to not talk to her about all the adult issues I was having and how hard it was for me to not tell her who she was; but I did it for her anyway, out of love, and in the knowledge that there was no other way possible. She was a child, and I was the adult with the weight of the responsibility and also with the complex and intense adult love.

Yikes! I am still analyzing and over analyzing this dream that came to me (overcame me, came over me) yestermorn. I think there are two major ways of interpreting the dream (yes, I will tell you the ways): 1.) The dream was a way of being able to see the complexities of Sasha's position (as an adult Sasha/Portia) and to see how her decisions may have been made in an attempt to be loving and good to me (ah, ego is fighting this one!) or 2.) The dream was a way of being able to see how I was, even at sixteen, the adult and that I am still the adult bearing the responsibility of loving and accepting and awaiting the growth of the child she loves.

I realize that this dream is yet another example of how the phantom of Sasha overcame me this year and affected not only my life but the life of the people closest to me. I cannot say whether it was the process of writing my book or an inner change in me that overcame me this year and caused a domino effect of change and growth in me. Right now, right at this very moment, I do not have as much clarity as I desire over what has been happening to me. While I have had moments of clarity, as an individual and with Sandy, we are still on a journey, trying to negotiate and come together to work things out between us in a way that works for each and both of us (and in a way that is good for our family unit). It is very easy for me to write about phantoms and dreams, it is not so easy for me to write about the way in which my phantoms and dreams affects my life. I am, right now, overcome with gratitude that I have been granted the privilege of traveling through life with Sandy. Each of us is working on herself and doing the best she can, and both of us are working together, struggling together and evolving together, in order to become individuals and partners - but not without having to traverse the lands of loneliness, separateness and pain. And not without being able to enjoy lasting moments of clarity, acceptance and love. (The one thing I left out from the above dream was that, toward the end of the dream, I did not know whether the child was Sasha or Sandy or both.)

In the dream with child-Sandy, the little girl was not just any little girl, she was my wife. She was my strong yet fragile wife, the one who sometimes feels invisible and conflicted, the one who is self-sacrificing and accepting. The one whose inner child wishes that she could be enough and that her feelings would matter enough to make the ghost of my past loosen her grip over my mind (the one who wishes I could let the ghost go and be peaceful and content in my life). In think The Mother (i.e. nurturing and mothering) is present (and predominant) in all healthy relationships. It is very much present, and always has been, in our relationship with one another. I have always felt a strong urge and desire to help. When Sandy met me, I was lost and in pain in a sea of confusion and misery. When Sandy met me, I was eighteen and very disconnected from the world. I was, as I have always been, caught in my world of dreams and phantoms. When she met me, I was a little girl who wanted to be a woman and I was a woman who wanted to take care of the little girl in another woman. I had a tremendous desire to bring helping and healing and nurturing into a romantic relationship (I just did not have the relationship). Sandy, too, had a desire to heal and help and nurture in a relationship. After she met me, she wanted to heal, help and nurture me. Which was nice, because I needed it. And I still need it. It is my hope and intention that I can heal, help and nurture her as much as she has done for me.

When I met Sandy, she was forty eight and she was in a somewhat healthy place in her life. She was living alone, and both resigned and settled into that condition. She was in a peaceful place, but she was lonely. She was starting to go out in the world again, after working for two years to get to a place where she could do that, opening herself up to friendship and connection. At the time, she was spending a lot of time drinking with her friends (a married couple of two lonely individuals), but she was getting tired of being the third party to their loneliness and she decided to take a step out of her comfort zone in order to open herself up to new influences in her life.

I met Sandy through an internet email group for women loving women, called the Buffalo Gals. She read a story I wrote about my mother, and she fell in love with my spirit (i.e., how I forgave my mother). Then we met, with a group of Buffalo Gals, at Spot Coffee on Delaware Avenue. I sat on the ground in front of the coffee table, wearing my purple snow pants. She sat across from me, on the corner of the couch. We hardly talked. I was shy, as usual, in a larger group. I had taken notice of her, though. I remember thinking that I had never seen anyone who looked like her before. I had a packet of poetry with a teabag attached that I brought to give to the Buffalo Gals webmaster, Cindy (whom I had never met), but when Sandy got up to get another cup of coffee I set it on top of her book and left without saying much of a goodbye. That night Sandy sent an email that said, "Someone left poetry behind on my book." I emailed her back and told her, "That was me. I left the poetry behind. I brought it, originally, for Cindy, but I want you to have it." She thanked me and told me she planned to read the poetry. I felt butterflies inside. I spent Christmas alone, fantasizing and dancing to Stevie Nicks with candles near my face in front of the window on Chasewood Lane. I was waiting. For something (someone).

I went to a gay bar, called Fugazi, to meet up with the Buffalo Gals and sing karaoke with friends. I walked in wearing a dress with a sweater over it and a red top hat. I had red fingerless gloves on, and I was doused in Beautiful by Estee Lauder. As soon as I entered the bar, I walked up to a group of two or three women standing in the middle of the floor. Buffalo Gals! I introduced myself to Cindy and greeted Sandy, who was different than she was at the coffee shop. She was quiet but oddly rebellious in some way. She said something about wanting to see my hair, and she lifted the hat off my head. I was a little shocked and dismayed when she said "Why don't you take that off?" and then proceeded to take it off of my head. She handed me my hat. I felt offended, like she did not like my hat and thought I looked funny. I later learned she wanted to see my face and hair (because she prefers hair hanging down to ponytails and hats). I put my hat and cloak and bag under a table at the far back corner of the bar. Then I bought a water bottle and stood against the wall next to Sandy at the side of the room by the dart board. She was wearing a navy blue UB hoodie with a white tee shirt underneath it. She asked me all sort of questions, and I gave her a lot of strong-headed, judgmental, sure-of-myself (foolish youthful) answers.

Sandy challenged me, over and over, and was very argumentative. I was partly annoyed and frustrated, and fully engaged. I had mixed feelings and didn't know whether she liked me or not. I felt annoyed by her juvenile teasing, yet I stayed by her side, talking to her the whole night. She started to say things like, "You're probably not really a lesbian." I said, "I AM a lesbian. I KNOW I'm a lesbian." "How do you know?" "I just know." "Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Why put yourself in a box?" "Because I want to be in that box, I want to be in that box. Why do you care? You don't believe I'm a lesbian?" "I just don't know why you need to put yourself in a box. Why say you're a lesbian?" "I do not get this. I don't get this conversation. Why do you care if I put myself in a box? It's like you don't want me to be a lesbian! Why would you care if I am or am not a lesbian?" Another woman heard us arguing and jumped into the conversation to defend me, saying, "Hey, if she thinks she's a lesbian, then she's a lesbian. Let her be who she wants to be." I felt vindicated and like I should go and be friends with that woman but instead I stayed by Sandy and continued to argue with her. I was full of frustration and confusion and insecurity. I did not realize, until later, that she was drunk out of her mind while I was completely sober. She went to the bathroom, and my friend Maria came over to me and said, "So, yeah, Sandy really likes you. I can tell she's into you. She's flirting with you." "She is!" I said, completely shocked and appearing appalled, "Are you serious? We've just been arguing. She doesn't think I'm a lesbian." Maria said, smiling a smile that made me feel embarrassed, "Oh, she's definitely flirting with you. A lot. Are you interested in her?" I reacted too quickly, "No. No, she's way too old for me. That would be way too extreme of an age difference." Then Sandy stumbled back over to me, looking disoriented and lost. She took my gloved hand in hers and just held it there, in her hands. She then started to slowly and sensually take the glove off my hand. She said, "You have nice hands." I felt too arrested to care about how short and demented my fingernails were nor how crooked my fingers were. She put the glove on her hand and smelled it. She made a dreamy, childish face. She put the glove back on, and held my hand again. I laughed and acted like I thought she was crazy, but really I was astounded.

After the bar cleared out, my friends and I were still there. They sang karaoke and I stood in the back of the room with Sandy and a woman named Mary. I was standing next to Sandy, and she said in dreamy drunkenness, "You smell so good." She leaned in and smelled my neck. She lingered there. Something sexual and erotic was happening to us, but I acted again like I was withstanding her childish antics. "Oh, that's nice. Let Mary smell you. Mary, you have to smell her." She turned me and led me away from her, with her hand on my back, toward Mary. Mary smiled and awkwardly leaned in, not with her nose to my neck, to smell me. She said, "She does smell very good." I felt we were both just humoring this drunken Sandy. I walked back over to Sandy and leaned against the wall. She smelled me again. I thought she was going to kiss my neck or fall asleep there. She looked sleepier and sleepier, as my friends finished singing "Silver Springs." Sandy said goodbye to me, nearly asleep it seemed, and then she vanished from the bar. I went home that night and replayed the glove and perfume moments in my head. All night long. The next day I got an email from a sober Sandy, a Sandy who had the worst headache of her life (she referred to it as a cerebral hemorrhage, and I had to look it up on Google). I did not know what to make of Sandy, but I was caught up in whatever was happening between us. I was overcome by some force that was moving me in her direction. I don't think it was simply the forces of attraction at work, something much larger was at work. She invited me to meet her at a coffee shop to play cards and enjoy her sober company. Her SOBER company was very important to me. I met her, on the night of New Year's Day 2003, at Starbucks on Transit Road. A couple of my high school friends were there, so I asked if we could get the chai teas and go to her house instead. She agreed, so I followed her Subaru with my parents' Saturn down a snowy Main Street over to Lennox Avenue. We drank chai tea and got drunk off of each other. No, we did not have sex that night. We were overcome by emotion, and we talked all night and listened to Nina Simone. She caressed my hands on the couch and we looked out at the snow piled on the branches of the tree outside her bedroom window. We were overcome then, and we're still overcome.

Sandy and I have been working together and traveling along side one another for nine years. January 1st 2012 marks our nine year anniversary of togetherness. I have grown more during the past nine years of my life than I ever, ever could have imagined, and I could not have done it without Sandy's influence. Whether we are arguing, debating, laughing, loving or just being together, we're always on the road to realizing more our selves. Neither of us can say what tomorrow will bring, but we can look back on the nine years that we have spent together with insight and see how enriched we are because of the experiences we shared during those nine years. We can look back, but more importantly we can look forward as we live in the present as the selves that we are right now. I love Sandy now as I loved her then and also uniquely as I love her now. I'll love Sandy for every tomorrow of my life as I love her now and also as I will uniquely love her in the future. I am overcome by a year in review, let alone nine years in review.

In real life today, I enjoyed a very pleasant thirteen hour drive with my family. When we arrived on Chasewood, the girls ran up to the entrance and were greeted by overcoming and overly exuberant grandparents (as always). As I am ever-overcome, I am learning to appreciate whatever the over and the come mean to and about me. As I sat in my old bedroom tonight, I felt sad. I wished it was still mine. I felt it was still mine. I felt good just being in the room. I just wanted to be in there and not be judged for wanting to be in there. So I went in there. I opened the curtains and sat on the bed in what used to be my bedroom. I thought about how I told my father I would never, ever, EVER again sleep in that room a few years ago during a fight we had that had more to do with longstanding issues than it did with the bedroom. I thought of how I VOWED to myself to never sleep in that room again. It was my form of feminist protest, it was my ego and my pride. Don't let them know how much they hurt you. Don't let them know you still care! Don't be vulnerable. You don't need the room. You don't need to be in the room. You don't need to remember the room. You don't need to honor the room. Fuck the damn room, let it be someone else's room. Don't give a damn about what's in it or what it was. Be right, be right, be right, be right.

But tonight, I didn't mind whether I was right or wrong: I just wanted to spend time alone in my old room. I read a little. I looked around a little. I felt a lot. I was overcome with insight: It's okay for me to change my mind. It's okay for me to admit that the room means something to me. It's okay for me to feel sad that it doesn't have anything in it that reminds anyone of me. It's okay to admit that it hurts that the room doesn't bear any visible signs of me...that I am just a ghost to the room now. I felt good being a ghost. I felt good with the ghosts in and of my room. I felt the room still has some kind of special magic power in it, some kind of magic essence of love in it. I felt it was still mine. Maybe my brother feels like it's his, too. Maybe he feels magic powers in it or about it. Maybe the room reminds him of himself. That's just fine. While the traces of me are gone, part of me will always live in that (!) room. And maybe, just maybe someday I will again spend the night or do a dance in there (God, if you're up there listening...). I can change my mind, and say I'd like to stay in that room. Maybe I will. There, I just did. I just said it. I changed my mind. Nothing has to change right THIS minute just because I changed my mind (or changed my heart), but it still feels good to me to recognize it. I feel open to new possibilities in the future with the room, and that openness is enough in and of itself to make the change a positive one.

I listened to a sermon on You Tube recently about "changing your mind." It meant a great deal to me, and the ideas "spoke" to my heart, in that kind of overcoming, spiritual way that I know so well. Rev. Tamara Lebak said, in her Unitarian Universalist sermon, "May we make space for our hearts to be touched and our minds to be changed. May we be mindful of the boxes we put others in, and help to create space where those whom we love can grow in our presence. For we are all human beings on a journey. We are all human beings becoming, always becoming." I go into the new year, 2012, with this in mind and heart. I take the overcoming of 2011 with me, and I welcome the changes that 2012 will bring. In the coming year, I hope to be very mindful of recognizing the ability to change and evolve in both others and myself. I believe in the power of evolution. I believe in the power of change and growth: mind-changing and mind-growing. Whether I am a child, like Sasha in my dream, or an adult, like me in my dream; I hope that I have the inner strength to move toward what is right in any given moment. I hope I have the inner strength to honor my evolving self. I hope I have the inner strength to be vulnerable (or vulverable, because that is what my fingers wanted to type instead of vulnerable) enough to change my mind, to admit that I do not know or have the answers, to allow others to change their minds when the time is right for them - and all the while to ride out the storm of emotions inside me. Yes, I'll be overcome. I will most certainly be overcome, but in 2012 I also hope to ride, ride, ride along. Ride it out. Ride along. Ride in openness, in 2012 just TRY to ride.

Ah, and don't think I have forgotten about the Resolution portion of the Holy...I mean, Holi-day. I haven't and will not forget this. To me, the New Year celebration is about review, contemplation, and overview. It is also about planning, setting goals and envisioning. Most of this blog entry has been in review, part of my inner contemplation and overview. I also need to set goals. I don't like to set a lot of specific goal, especially ones that I already highly doubt I can reach. When I was younger, I would resolve to stop biting my nails every year. It really dampened my confidence in my own resolve to fail (to hardly even make an effort) to stop biting my nails. I no longer resolve to stop biting my nails. I am not going to "fight" against that inner urge, because I know that fighting the urge will only make it stronger and more powerful. And, after all the time, I have realized that nail-biting, on the scale of anxiety-induced coping behaviors or compulsions, is actually one of lesser self-harm. My nail biting hasn't been AS dominating as it used to be. I know that academic stress skyrockets my unstoppable compulsion to bite my nails. It's about my mouth and my jaw more than my fingers. The nails are just a very easy target for the wrath of my mouth. I am becoming more aware of just how often and how much I tighten and clench my jaw. In a theater class at NU, I was told by one of my instructors that I hold all of stress and tension in my jaw. She was right. I guess it was obvious to everyone but me. All I can do is try my best to be mindful and to relax my mouth/jaw/bite whenever I think to do so. I am not going to try NOT to bite my nails, I am just going to continue to be mindful of what I am doing. When I am truly being mindful, I can stop. When I choose mindlessness (thoughtless behavior) over mindfulness then I cannot and do not stop. Sometimes I am mindless and sometimes I am mindful. My resolutions this year are abstract and large, but they trigger many small changes that will have large effects.

I resolve, in 2012, to be as mindful and aware of myself and my actions and my emotions as possible. Does that mean I am going to be able to turn off the emotions and compulsions when the hormones within are raging? No. But it does mean that I start each day -remembering- mindfulness. Isn't that funny: you have to be mindful of being mindful? Well I do. It is so easy to get caught in a rut. Two ways of maintaining reminders of mindfulness are to go to bed early enough that I can wake up early enough to start my day mindfully. As much as I would like to stay up all night writing, I cannot function with a high level of mindfulness the following day if I do so. If I was a teenager living at my parents' house, with little responsibility and no interpersonal relationships requiring WORK, then staying up all night to write and write and writer might not be bad. But writing all night leads to waking up late and functioning poorly the following day (since I have children with needs who wake up early and don't deserve a crabby mummy). In 2011, I spent a lot of time feeling ::: ANGRY. Some of the anger and stress I felt had to do with my sleeping habits. Some of it had to do with the fact that I no longer had anything to distract me from my own unhappiness. Instead of turning away from myself, toward some new form of greener grass, I tried my hardest to FACE myself...the bottomless well of loneliness that seems to me to be me. I think distractions from unhappiness are a good way of coping, but sometimes we choose to do the harder work and try to take the unhappiness on. 2011 was the right time for me to do that, without much distraction. Unfortunately that kind of inner work can be very ugly and painful and dirty...I don't know if I had some kind of hellish past life or what, but I often feel like the victim of some heinous crime and I don't even know why. What I have been going through for the past year inside has all the inner workings of devastation, darkness, the edge of death, deep trauma and survival...what I have been going through for the past year is something that really belongs on a desert island. I needed a lot of isolation to be in that dark place, and so it separated me a great deal from everyone around me. I feel sad about that, because I became aware of the separateness of myself from everything and everyone else.

While I believe in the unity and oneness of the universe and all its beings, I am also aware of the separateness of the psyche. It seems, yes, that the only thing separating us from Oneness in Being is our mind/psyche. In short form, all of this is to say that I have been quite unhappy and angry in 2011. I don't know where the anger comes from or why it is there or what it means. It's just there. I wish I could just let the anger be, but anger spreads plague-like to others. My angry frame of mind affected my family, especially Sandy. I took Paxil for three days before deciding that was not the answer. I think I went to get Paxil out of fear of change. When things aren't working, ya gotta do something to change things. All of the anger I felt at times led me to try to justify it...to think about what is missing from my life, what "should" be different, what is "not right." I spent a lot of time making endless videos on You Tube in which I talked to myself about myself (my self-therapy). I spent a lot of time writing poems (my creative work). I spent a lot of time writing a book about a source of pain in the past (my self-therapy AND my creative work). I started doing inner work. They don't call it work for nothin'. Still, the inner work did not lead me to any form of lasting peace and contentment. That's okay. I still value those endeavors. What I do not value is what I did in my moments of unhappiness. I blamed. I blamed Sandy, though not directly and not intentionally. If she would do X, then I wouldn't be so tortured. If we could do X, then I wouldn't do this and that. I looked at her many times during the year, across the dinner table, and said things like, "I don't feel like you like me anymore" and "Do you even like me as a person? I feel like you don't like me." Sometimes she would reassure me (when I would burst into tears) and sometimes she would respond defensively and tell me that no matter what she did or said I would never be happy. Instead, I would like to say, "I am not feeling very likable at this moment" or "I am feeling bad inside, and it isn't your fault. I wish it would be different, but I just have to experience the feelings until they fade away. I am sorry for how my mood may be affecting you."

Anais Nin said, "We don't see things are they are, we see them as we are." It's all about perception. I wasn't feeling very happy, and so I saw the people around me as unhappy (with me). I wasn't feeling very loveable or like anyone would want me, and so I saw a lack of love and a lack of wanting around me. I'm a slave to my own perception just as much as anyone else out there. This year, regardless of how happy or unhappy I feel, I am determined to stop blaming Sandy (or anyone/anything) else for my unhappiness. I never thought that it would be possible for me to incorporate any kind of Buddhist philosophy or mentality (the concept that attachment leads to suffering never quite moved me), but perhaps when it comes to anger, I can use a less-attached approach: acknowledging the anger or depression or whathaveyou without trying to hold something or someone responsible for it. It will not make the feeling go away, but at least it will not spread or displace the feeling onto others. This is going to be a challenge (especially at certain point in my menstrual cycle), but I am committed to being mindful of the way in which I attach my anger to external sources. Whatever changes occur and whatever happens, I go forth with a commitment to the knowledge that NO one, other than me, is responsible for how I feel inside. I may not even be responsible, but I certainly cannot blame anyone else. Blaming Sandy for my bad mood is like blaming the wind for my bad moon. No logic whatsoever. I am aware, and I will remind myself all throughout 2012 of that awareness. Wish me luck (or wish me mindful, because I don't believe mindfulness has anything to do with luck). I have realized that the love that I give that is gentle and kind is the love I receive. If I am putting out unhappy, critical vibes, I am sure to get unhappy, critical vibes back. I cannot control anyone else's unhappy, critical vibes; but I know for sure that I can at least be aware of my own (even if I cannot control them). Here's to a mindful and mind-blowing 2012!

Since I, as part of Dar's game in the car, was named Buzz Lightyear today, I have one thing left to say about the impending New Year: "To Infinity and Beyond!"

(Notes: The FB updates preceding this blog, further insight into my psychedelic psyche)

Well, Howdy Chasewood Lane. We're in Melissa Sue's old bedroom, now that we've rearranged the furniture, but I did sneak into my old room to open the curtains and say hello to my old bouncing (and stomping) grounds. She looks different, new paint, football trophies - but the ghosts dance there amidst the clutter of color! Lots going on, a few giant presents to wrap, and then it's peacesleep for all of us.

Finished wrapping the two giantgiganticginormas gifts for the girls...someone once told me I wrapped gifts beautifully...very funny joke...just me and the boxes alone in the Mason's basement...beagles howling across the neighborhood...I apologized to the Universe for using so much tape...I also said "Fuck you!" and "Get the fuck over there!" to the candy cane wrapping paper...then I decided to try a more loving approach, and instead said, "Come on, Sweetie, cooperate with me." That approach seemed to work better than the directive f-bombs (holiday cheer when you are all alone freezing in a cold basement under fluorescent lights and you are tired from a day of driving and you know the girls will wake up early and you have to pee and you don't know how to wrap a present, that is as big as you, efficiently or effectively)...I talked to myself and the gift wrapping material...first box was a lot messier and a more violent experience....second box went smoothly - had me on all fours standing over it and whispering sweetly until the paper almost ripped when I was moving the heavy box...started to curse at it ("No, you little mother") but managed to control myself....at least I managed not to use the lord's name in vain on the eve of Christmas Eve...phew...present wrapping success story!!!

I have taken the whole "making a clean exit" thing to a whole other level...how did I end up scrubbing out the refrigerator at 10PM when I have a thirteen hour drive and kiddie chaos for the next week in store for me??? I feel like I'm about to have another baby, but it's only Buffalo I'll be delivering. Imagine the idea of being a wet nurse for Buffalo. Imagine breastfeeding Buffalo. Somehow ya gotta get pregnant with Buffalo first - so then you can say you're pregnant with a city. "I'm about to deliver Buffalo (not A Buffalo, although that might be easier)." So, off I'm gonna shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo. Buffalo needs breast milk. I'm gonna nurse a city. Who's with me? (Wow.) (How will I ever get the sleep I need after that inspiring speech.)‎ "Let's Express without The Mess" (That's my political slogan for when I run for Mayoress of Buffalo...the land of the friendly, AND full, AND happy, AND sometimes belching neighbor). Buffalo: The Beau Fleuve. Beautiful River. Constant Flow. Prosperity. "Milk it for all it's worth!"‎(I'll just ignore the whole "Rivière aux Chevaux / Horse River" thing, since it doesn't suit my campaign.) ‎"Let's make it the Beau Fleuve instead of just clinging to a meaningless name that masks the way in which colonialism dirtied the land and the water of the Iroquoian people and nation. Let's give the land that was stolen by colonizing men back to Mothers who can nurse her back to health." Now there's the best unintentional propaganda I can come up with. ‎(Intentionally unintentional.) ‎(For me, Buffalo is the land of little sleep. Which makes perfect sense, it I am one of its/her mothers.) ‎(I never grow tired of talking to myself.)

Preschool Christmas Art Galley, First Ever Showing

2011-12-22T13:28:00.000-08:00

Darah's Annual Thanksgiving Poem

2011-11-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

Darah's Annual Thanksgiving Poem
(Thanksgiving 2011, 3yrs)

Thanksgiving's about bein'
together, we never sever.

She's makin' pie.
We make pies
and we roast stuff
and we cook.
We don't sigh.

It's about bein' together
and puttin' up stuff
and having fun - that's what
it's really about.

So that's my silly poem.
Pie's the best part.

Raspberry pie
and mashed potato pie,
blueberry pie, sprout pie,
carrot pie is what we eat.

Broccoli pie, muffin pie,
celery pie, turkey pie -
take a seat,
put up your feet.

The turkey's dead,
the turkey's dead, we killed it
with a knife
when we slapped it.

Before it died, it said
No, don't eat me.

You killed the turkey
on Thanksgiving Day.
We put oil on it
and put it in the oven
at eleven degrees.

It gets super hot.

Turkeys wanna eat
turkeys. A whole family
of turkeys sitting
at a table. The second one
gets eaten.

All the turkeys
get eaten - ow, ow, ow,
ow, ow, ow.
Momma Si's the turkey
at our table.

Our turkey has a name,
its name is Momma Si.