I’d just gotten out of the shower when Samantha said she needed to talk to me and she’d wait until I was decent. After I finished yesterday’s entry, I took a shower to give my allergy medicine time to kick in before I started tackling my room. Plus, taking a shower or washing my face really helps to get whatever’s bothering me off my skin. But anyway, I was really unprepared for what she had to say.

My roommate, Tanner, turned out to be a heroin addict, which is probably why even though he lived right next door to me, we never met. Even when we passed in the hallway, he was silent… which makes sense now that I know what kind of opiates he was taking. Apparently, he and his girlfriend had pre-filled syringes and they’d shoot up while the rest of us were going about our lives. I kick myself for not noticing, but to be fair, as I have said before, when I have my headphones in (which is most of the time) a bear could rip off the side of the house and I’d never notice.

When I was at the Women’s March last week, Tanner overdosed (as far as I know, he’s okay now). When 911 was called, my other roommates, both nurses at Holy Cross, stayed with him until we had emergency vehicles up and down the street. We have a zero-tolerance policy with drugs around here, so Tanner was kicked out immediately. However, a nosy neighbor called the county on us, and next Tuesday, the police are going to inspect the whole house for drugs. When they came the day of Tanner’s OD, they searched his room for anything and everything, and apparently either all the drugs were used up or removed from the house before they got here. They told Samantha that the kind of opiates Tanner and his girlfriend were using could leave particles on bedclothes, furniture, etc. and the person breathing in the room could get high. So Samantha searched the room again and Hayat bought all new bedclothes, pillows, everything for that room. It’s no problem that the police are coming again. I have one hotel bottle of Stoli Orang that I’m keeping for a snow day when I just can’t get warm, because at Autumn and Dan’s Christmas party, a five-pack of hotel vodka bottles was my white elephant gift. I told the group that I didn’t drink much, and asked if anybody wanted one. I only had one taker, so I gave the raspberry to my friend Hyde and took the rest home. They’ve been invaluable on the nights when it was so cold I shivered violently, because one shot is enough to make all my capillaries dilate and the warmth starts to radiate from within…. which is why I still have one left. It just hasn’t been cold enough to justify drinking the last one… special to me because Stoli Orang was the shot we took to send Dan off to Russia.

So, the police can go through everything I own, and that’s fine. But “Gladys Kravitz” is a retired DC cop, and apparently got the wrong idea that this was an isolated incident and not normal for “our family.” Tanner didn’t even last a month, and Krystle lasted two or three days, because Edu and I both caught her smoking weed in the house, even though she was told up front that any drugs were a dealbreaker. I suppose that these things are par for the course when you advertise on Craig’s List, because everyone is nice in the beginning. Tanner lied to Hayat’s face and told her he was in recovery…. apparently, not so much. He didn’t have a relapse so much as never being in recovery in the first place. I was very lucky that I got a room here after only talking to Hayat on the phone for about an hour and a half, because I moved in sight unseen, and it was perfect. Just absolutely perfect, the place I needed to be at the time I needed to be here. It has worked out well, because despite the fact that sometimes my room is a wreck, I’m a great roommate in terms of keeping public spaces immaculate. As these two roommates have come and gone, I feel more and more sane all the time. #smallblessings

Samantha gave Hayat a good piece of advice…. that for the next roommate, make sure they have a job in a place where they piss test, because that makes it so much more unlikely that they’ll have any sort of problems with drugs. It’s been a weird road lately, but there was no way to prepare for the future until it arrived.

It gave me even more motivation to buzzsaw through my room, and I’m almost done. Yesterday was a bear, and I have muscle aches in places I didn’t know I had. There was more recycling than I thought, because I didn’t realize that empty cans and bottles had found their way under my dressers and bed. But like I said, Thursday is trash day, so I was able to carry everything down to the curb instead of letting it sit around. The only thing that’s left is laundry, including my bedclothes, and a good sweep. It feels really, really good to be so far along in the project, and I had the motivation before I found out about the police search. That was just an added bonus. My plan is to put my clothes back in my dresser and take them down to the laundry one basket at a time so I can wash my clothes for free, even though it would be far more efficient to put everything in garbage bags and wash it all at once in a laundromat. I just want my clothes to be out of the way in case I can’t finish my laundry by Tuesday, because today and Sunday are so busy, along with other people having to do their laundry as well. I will wash everything, but there’s a lot I need to give to Goodwill because I’ve lost weight and some of my clothes don’t fit anymore. I don’t like wearing over-sized clothes because there’s no sense in looking bigger than I really am.

So, I’m taking Marie Kondo’s advice and donating everything that doesn’t give me joy, as well as preparing all of the things I want to take on my trip. I think I’ve said this before, but I’m meeting my dad and my sister in Orlando to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I’m sure I’ll have some great pictures to post along the way, both for my Facebook feed and this web site, which does an excellent job with photo galleries. I think I’m going to bring my laptop along so that I have the ability to edit them before I post, because some of them will look cool with filters, etc. and some of them will need cropping. I can do most of that on my phone, but I truly rely on GIMP to give me the best outcome. It’s basically an open source version of Adobe PhotoShop, and there’s a version called GIMPShop if you’re so familiar with PhotoShop that you don’t want to learn everything fresh. Basically, it comes with a .bat file that changes all the keyboard shortcuts to what you would use if PhotoShop was installed.

I used to use Google Picasa extensively, but they’ve retired the program and I am extremely sad about it, because it was a great image organizer and basic retouching program. There weren’t any bells and whistles, but I didn’t need them. Taking out red eye, cropping, and sometimes adding filters or warmth to improve skin tone was enough. I also liked the fact that you could organize your photo library and have it sync with your Google Drive so that you never lost a photo. My photo stream automatically backs up to Google on my phone, but it’s just not the same.

Maybe fuming about it is how I’ll finish getting everything sorted about my room. Anger is a beautiful thing because nothing says venting like taking it out on innocent baseboards.

Because they are coming.

One of my favorite things, right up there with Jesus giving me a hug, is nose spray with menthol. I’ve loved it since I was a kid, because my father was devout in his use. This may not be the case anymore, but it was then. I follow the directions carefully, because all ENT (ear, nose, and throat) docs will tell you that if you use it too much, you’ll get what’s called “kickback,” the phenomenon of having to use it more and more. I take it at the same time as my Sudafed and Zyrtec, so that by the time they kick in, I can breathe easy. The only other time in my life that I’ve felt that kind of relief was when I went to an ENT who had this thing, not unlike a soda gun, that reached up past my nose into my sinuses and blew decongestion/allergy meds right into my mask. I also take generic Humibid, which thins out my secretions so I can get them out easier. It stops both the congestion and the queasiness from accidentally swallowing them. I figured out that I do not have a cold. I just have bad allergies right now, which is ridiculous when it’s this cold outside. I mean, where are the allergies coming from?

My guess is that my room is dusty in some places, because when I went for the allergy test where they put allergens under the skin to see what makes you react, dust blew up four of the other samples (incidentally, as a lesbian, I am relieved to know that I am not allergic to cats. I don’t have one, but 95% of the dating pool will have at least one…. stereotypes come from somewhere…). Anyway, it’s time to find the dust, and I think a good bit of it is on my ceiling fan. I’ll get some Pledge and go to it, because the more expensive brands will actually repel dust so that you don’t have to spray as often.

I really am that Marie Kondo simplicity Virgo, but when I get depressed, I just can’t hack it. Today I can make a serious dent in the mess that’s left over from my other attempts at organizing, because tomorrow is trash day. After I finish this entry, I am feeling so much better that I’ll have the energy to buzzsaw through.

I was inconsolable yesterday, because CCC needed rental income and rented out my office before telling me and stashed all my stuff in Matt’s office. If I’d known they’d needed income, if I could’ve found the resources, I would have paid it. My office is the one thing that will get me out of the house… or, at least it was. I haven’t been there in a few weeks because my depression took hold mightily and I couldn’t leave my desk at home. Sometimes I feel that I’ve gotten a bit agoraphobic, which is pretty normal for someone who suffers from both chemical and situational depression. Staying in my room reinforces staying in my room, because the longer I go without human interaction, the more I become afraid of it.

Last night I made steps to improve my life by buying both my sister and myself a copy of Never the Same, written by my friend Donna Schuurman. It is specifically written for adults who have lost a parent in childhood and have never dealt with it, but there are so many parts to the book that resonate with me now and I couldn’t pass it up for either of us. Losing my mother suddenly at 39 feels just as traumatic (I think) as losing a parent before age 18, because my mother’s life was cut so short. She just retired last school year at 65, and I was looking forward to the next 15-20 years with a passion. I don’t grieve so much for the past, but for the lost future. Yes, sometimes remembering past memories make me sad, but it is nothing compared to the sadness that we were starting to rebuild this close, intimate relationship and it wasn’t finished yet… not that we’d ever be finished with the journey, but we didn’t get enough steps together and now all of it is gone.

I have written before about how the piano was our lighthouse in the fog of my youth, and I am grateful that she left it to me. However, there is no room in my house anywhere for a baby grand. I told my stepdad that we could leave it at his house (because the piano is just as meaningful to him as it is to me) until I have a space big enough for it. I remember when we moved to a small apartment (or, more accurately, when my sister and my mother moved to a small apartment and my dad and I moved to an even smaller one), the piano sat in the dining area and we ate on TV trays or joked about setting the piano for dinner. So maybe the space I need isn’t as large as I think. My aunt Beth asked me how I was going to get it to DC, and I joked that I was just going to tie it to the top of my two-door hatchback…. what could possibly go wrong?

I took group piano at University of Houston, but mostly I play by ear. I can pick up things easily by listening to it, but reading two rhythms on the page is extraordinarily difficult, especially since I can barely read bass clef (you don’t really need it as a trumpet player or a soprano). However, even with just ear training, I used to play for hours… mostly from Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album, or John Tesh’s Live at Red Rocks or Avalon (shut it- those are the only ones I like). I’ve also come up with my own arrangements for a few things, but put sheet music in front of me and it’s a foreign language. I’ve decided that when I have the room for said piano, I should take a few more lessons… at least enough to learn bass clef. That might clear up a few things. 😛

For someone who’s taken music theory, group piano, and spent hours upon hours playing the piano both at home and at UH’s lab, I’m still such a n00b. Like I said, I’ve come up with my own arrangements for things, but I couldn’t notate them if my life depended on it. I sort of cheated on my final exam for group piano by having my mother play my piece over and over so that I could learn it by ear and memorize it rather than actually having to read off the page. That’s a memory I’d forgotten that makes me smile. She was invaluable to me during that semester, because I had to have a performing arts class for my degree plan. Why I didn’t choose choir or band I’ll never know. Probably because I didn’t really know how to play the piano and I at least wanted to be able to play parts while learning hymns, etc. I still haven’t gotten there…………. #shatnerellipsis #prayingonthespaces

I know why I didn’t choose band. It embarrasses me every time I pick up my horn that I am no longer as good as I used to be. I was never the best, but I have won first desk at several auditions in my life, and that is no small feat, especially at HSPVA. I embarrassed the hell out of myself in a Portland community orchestra when a trumpet player was absent and I volunteered to take his solo while he was gone, thinking that I could pull it off because hey, I’ve played solos my whole life. It did not go……. well.

By that time, I realized I should put my energy into singing, and I became a better singer than I ever was a trumpet player, and I kicked myself for not going the choir route. I made All-District choir my junior year of high school, and All-Region auditions were the same day as the All-State marching contest. I couldn’t make a hole in the trumpet line in good conscience, so I didn’t go. But I wonder to this day how far I could’ve made it. In terms of the All-State marching contest, we played a suite from On the Waterfront, one of Leonard Bernstein’s great film scores. We came in first with four out of five judges, but one judge rated us a lot lower, so we ended up coming in fifth. The bus was absolutely silent going home, because we were all so angry that one person could affect the entire outcome. Now, fifth best marching band in the entire state of Texas is great, but it was no consolation then.

In symphonic band, we beat out hundreds of bands to perform at TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association). It was one of the highlights of my musical career, because we were given the Sudler Flag of Honor by the John Philip Sousa Foundation, which recognizes outstanding high school concert bands. It was the second time in my life that I have accidentally ended up in a better place than where I originally started. I didn’t get into Johnston Middle School, at Clifton we beat the pants off them in contests. At Clements, we beat the pants off HSPVA.

Because my mother was an elementary school teacher, she was already in San Antonio where TMEA was held, so I got to see her a lot. I can’t remember whether she was at our concert, because I think she had a workshop at the same time. But we went through the “fair” together, where I got to try at least 20 trumpet mouthpieces and 50 different horns. She also bought me a pair of knee socks with music staffs circling upward.

Speaking of which, Lindsay and Forbes are going with my idea for my mother’s headstone, which is to put a music staff on it that plays Amazing Grace. They’re also going to put a marble piano bench modeled after her own near “our tree.” Now I have to confess that I didn’t come up with the idea on my own. It’s from a ring I’ve always wanted from James Avery. However, I don’t think anyone’s ever thought of it for a headstone before, so I hope that it turns out as unique as she was.

The ring itself is retired now, so they are extremely hard to find, and sometimes outrageously expensive. I don’t think there’s a single link I’ve found for this piece that hasn’t said “sold.” So it’s an idea that I remembered from my teenage years…. I don’t think they’ll mind. If they do, too late now.

On that “note,” time to get to cleaning the dust off my ceiling fan. I’ve taken an antihistamine to hopefully combat the extreme reaction. #fingerscrossed

It’s been reported that border patrol is now looking at Facebook for people with political views opposing their own. Come get me. I dare you. My Bible tells me that I am supposed to welcome the stranger in every possible way that I can, and that message is echoed from the Jews to the new church. I’m sure those border patrol agents don’t remember that Jesus would have been dead as a toddler if Mary and Joseph hadn’t been able to get into Egypt. That now he wouldn’t even be able to get into the US because despite popular belief, racial profiling would cut him off at the pass. What, he’s the only European-descent white guy in Israel/Palestine? #dumbassattack

If Paul needed to evacuate his mission after his conversion near Damascus, had it happened in present day, he’d be just as screwed as everyone else trying to get out of that dystopian shitshow of a country.

I’m impressed by all the hypocrisy around here these days. For someone who rails at the sky that no one believes he’s a Christian, Trump isn’t doing much to prove it. It takes a lot of gaslighting to get people to believe that you follow religious principles when you’re clearly suffering from delusions of grandeur. Religion, in its purest form, is the examination of the self… the realization that if there is a God, it’s not you. It’s meant to push your ego out of the way, and if there is anything that is NOT happening in the White House, it’s the submission of ego for the greater good of many.

Trump’s racism is unprecedented, because there are plenty of white terrorists running around already here. We’re not banning white people from coming here, I assure you. The difference is that there’s not as many immigrants from European countries because they aren’t under constant threat of having civillian neighborhoods bombed either out of spite or a missed target…. plus, all of the sudden, and I’m sure no one can figure out why, people in European countries seem to be really happy staying where they are.

Perhaps it’s that the US is getting more self-destructive by the day, and it’s not going to get any better until we have a president that understands what the job entails can form coherent thoughts and sentences. I’m not even sure that Trump can understand the words as they’re coming out of his mouth, and he’s not a detail-oriented policy wonk. Reading the headlines and using soundbites to form opinions seems to be enough… even with security briefings from people who are probably doubled over in pain trying to dumb it down enough for comprehension. Or maybe they just do what they do and give him a coloring book. Who knows?

I’ve long thought that there was a shadow government that really runs the country, and I can only hope that their main job right now is to keep Trump from running off the rails. But Trump seems to fire everyone who thinks about it, so public agents that disagree with him are gone. I can only hope that undercover agents still have their sanity intact. It is obvious to me that White House senior intelligence is now just an oxymoron. I think senior intel in the White House serves at the pleasure of the president, so once the transition team was out of there, we lost any modicum of sanity around a megalomaniac of a President.

Now that there’s starting to be a rebellion in the Republican Party, our hope has to be that it spreads. Maybe this will be the event where working across the aisle is restored after The Hammer destroyed it.

Not everything is a nail.

I’ve got the beginnings of another cold, and this time, I know it’s because there’s something in my room that I can’t find that’s making me sick. Perhaps it’s a dish I forgot to take downstairs that got pushed under the bed while I was trying to organize and missed it. But whatever it is, people don’t get sick this often, and I think a deep clean with Fabuloso™ is necessary. As I quote often from Ralphie May, Fabuloso gets out third world dirt. If I end up taking the road of full-time job with laptop tether, I’d like to find a housekeeper, for two reasons. The first is that obviously, my room would always be organized. The second is that I tend to keep it up so that I’m not embarrassed when the housekeeper comes over. I’d like to hire someone who could really use the money, and I couldn’t care less if they’re legal in this country or not. I just don’t know how to reach out to someone like that. But that is putting the cart before the horse, because I need enough money to hire an employee before I hire an employee, capiche?

But thoughts of coming home at night with my room spotless and my laundry folded are deep motivation for finding any sort of job, and I am sending out resumes and filling out applications like a fiend. I am blessed in that my rent and bills are the cheapest I’ve ever had, so even if I worked at Safeway, I’d still have enough money to pay someone else. This is because I don’t really spend money on anything. When I left DSI, I had three and a half months’ worth of living expenses saved up because I wouldn’t leave the house. Most of that was because not having a car made it where I was so exhausted from my commute that I didn’t have room in my life for anything fun. The rest was that my savings account meant more to me than leaving the house.

Because I had that cushion, after I lost my mother I came home and completely decompensated. I couldn’t even make myself take a shower and get dressed some days, and though I have graduated into wanting to get back into real life, I ponder the re-entry greatly. At this point, I will take anything to make my savings account happy, but I do not want to be distracted from going back to school. The only reason I’m just now thinking about it is that I haven’t needed a degree to get where I wanted to go previously, and now I do. I need two of them, actually.

Because I want to work in the inner city with the homeless population, it is possible that I could get grants for loan forgiveness with grad school. I don’t know about undergrad. I am going to make an appointment with a counselor at Howard to see where I need to go from here. It’s not important that I go to Howard for undergrad, but it’s where I want to go to grad school, so I will start there and branch out. There are a few courses I could take at a community college, because even though I am a second-semester junior at University of Houston, there’s a couple of first and second year classes that I need to take care of… like a math class and and a sophomore English class like “Intro to Writing.” I am not worried about passing English. I took freshman comp at Wharton County Junior College and on the first day, our professor said that she just wanted a benchmark for where we were in our writing ability, so she gave us 30 minutes and a topic. She thought it was so good when I was finished that she made me read it in front of the class. I wish I could remember what it was about, but I’ve slept since then.

But back to Howard….

Howard’s divinity school is United Church of Christ, which means that I could get all of my denominational requirements done at the same time I’m taking classes. If I went somewhere else, I’d have to go to school first and THEN work out how to get ordained in that denomination. The only reason I find it a bit sad is that so much of my soul is Episcopalian, but I just cannot even. I know that the Episcopal church would be a good fit for me, but there is no changing the liturgy under any circumstances, and as I’ve pointed out before, I am a writer. It’s what I do, and it’s what I’d like to continue to do with my bulletins. When I was at Bridgeport UCC in Portland, when I preached, I also put together the orders of worship, so that the calls and responses were something I’d come up with myself. I enjoy preaching a great deal, but to me, what was even better was hearing 150 people read out loud something I wrote, because as a writer, all we want is for our words to be read.

That being said, it doesn’t mean I don’t want the choir to wear cassocks and surplices, either. 😛

I have so many ideas, and at this point, no where to put them. But that will change over time as I achieve one goal after another. The hardest part is finding momentum in the midst of deep grief, because as I was telling one of my friends, the hardest part of losing my mother is that people expect me to get back to normal, and there is no normalizing this. There can be a new normal, but the grief regarding what normal used to be is often overwhelming. My natural depression is made so much worse by the added situational depression of losing a parent, and it’s not something you can explain to anyone that hasn’t lost a parent themselves. They just have no frame of reference for it. I actually had one friend tell me that they didn’t want to hear about my grief because they didn’t even want to imagine losing their own mother.

And another said I didn’t seem that sad, and it would have been so much worse if I’d lost my father instead. I said, “because it would have been so much harder to lose my right arm than my left?” That shut ’em up.

It’s hard not to feel internalized rage at the stupid things people say to me, but I have to remember that again, they have no frame of reference for what I’m going through and won’t until one of their parents dies. In the words of Jesus, forgive them Father, for they know not what they do. The comment about losing my father over my mother absolutely undid me for days, because the idea that I “didn’t seem sad enough” was heartbreaking. What is “sad enough” supposed to look like? I’m already metaphorically tearing my clothes and refusing to engage with anyone on most days. Is that sad enough for you? There are days when I can’t even pick up the phone, I’m so depressed. There are days when, because I don’t have anywhere to be, I don’t get out of bed. There are days that when I do, I regret it. It’s been since October that my mother died, and except for a few outings, I won’t even go to the grocery store regularly. My appetite fluctuates between EAT ALL THE THINGS and eat nothing for a few days until my appetite returns. IS THAT SAD ENOUGH FOR YOU?

In fact, right now I have to send a text message to Hayat and tell her that since I haven’t been grocery shopping, everyone has taken up all my space in the fridge so that if I did shop, I wouldn’t have anyplace to put my groceries. What does that say about how long it’s been since I’ve bought milk, eggs, etc.? What about that? IS THAT SAD ENOUGH FOR YOU?

What about being glad that Dana and I are divorced so that I don’t have to engage with anyone unless I want to? That I don’t have to take care of a marriage and my grief at the same time? Glad that Dana doesn’t require my attention and love so that I can be as absolutely selfish with my time as I want, even though I know she would have been so supportive of me that I wouldn’t have even had to sigh before she was johnny-on-the-spot with a hug? IS THAT SAD ENOUGH FOR YOU?

What about on my deepest, darkest days, feeling like going to college and grad school, getting remarried, having children (my own or my partner’s), etc. is pointless because my mother won’t be there to see it? IS THAT SAD ENOUGH FOR YOU?

I started this entry with so much hope for my future, but something got under my skin and I just spiraled into all of the anger I feel. But again, very few people are equipped to deal with others’ grief, and I have to be loving and forgiving because they really don’t have any clue what nerve they’re hitting on any given day. Being sad enough is not something I feel I should need to prove, but because it runs under the surface, people are apt to comment on it. But it doesn’t take much to make me come undone.

Which is why I don’t engage. I want to be by myself as all this processing gets done, because others’ input is often not helpful, because again, they have no frame of reference and are just trying to help…. and can’t.

I need to reach out to my friends who have also lost parents, because they understand that absolutely helpless place…. the one that says despite external appearances, I am DEFINITELY SAD ENOUGH FOR YOU.

Leader: Show me what democracy looks like!
Crowd: This is what democracy looks like!

This was the chant of the day, repeated like a mantra as I marched on Washington for the first, and hopefully not the only time.

I started the day at Autumn & Dan’s house, where Autumn made breakfast and coffee for the five of us (Lindsay & Kai were there as well… Lindsay of “don’t look, but that guy over there is David Sedaris” fame). In order to avoid parking issues, we parked in Alexandria and walked to the Braddock Street Station, where crowds were staggered going up the escalator so that the train platform wasn’t overcrowded. It took a while to get upstairs, but once we did, it was a festive atmosphere. Every train that came through the station was already jam packed, and only a few people from Braddock could get on at a time. And every time a train left the station, the cheering and whooping and hollering would start all over, because it was one more train headed to the march. I don’t know how we managed to get all five of us onto a train at once, but we did, and as I whispered to Lindsay, “if we were any closer, we’d have to get married.” I also told her that of all the mental health issues I have, I am glad that claustrophobia is not one of them. The crowd was so tight it was hard to breathe, and I am sure that both weight and number limits were exceeded by a large margin. No one cared… or if they did, they were too polite to say so because they recognized what a gargantuan feat was being pulled off yesterday.

I have to give a YUUUUUGE shout-out to WMATA, because lines were long, crowds were frustrating, and they did the best job they possibly could… because let’s face it. No matter how you plan for something like this, there is no easy way to get 400,000 people around a city. I hope they made enough in fares to cover the extra trains, because it was so gracious of them to step up frequency and open early.

Though it continued to be more and more uncomfortable with every stop, because like I said, no one was getting off the train, we made it to Federal Triangle unscathed. From the moment we entered the station, the streets were just as crowded as the train. We tried to find alternate routes, but with that many people, there were no alternate routes. We made it to The Mall, where we could breathe and walk around. If you see pictures of The Mall, you’d think that the protest wasn’t that large, but it was actually on the surrounding streets, with onlookers packed onto the steps of every federal building and Smithsonian museum. I hope that I was able to capture the spirit of the march on my Facebook feed, but I wasn’t able to get high enough above the crowd so that everyone could see the scope. It was massive…. just absolutely crazy busy with activity. The people, united, will never be defeated.

The best (non-offensive) sign I saw was I’ve seen better cabinets at Ikea. To me, the worst protest yell was hey hey, ho ho… Donald Trump has got to go. The reason for this is that Mike Pence is an actual legislator, and I think his rollbacks are even scarier than what Trump might do…. conversion therapy, funerals for every abortion, shutting down federal funding for women’s health even though none of that funding goes toward abortion, etc. Although, who am I kidding? Whether it’s President Trump or President Pence, there will be a lot of changes because the legislators around President Trump know for sure that he has no idea what he’s doing, and will capitalize on it regardless. The second-best sign I saw, which rang so much truth it hurt, was we are the 51% minority.

As I “walked,” I wished that President Obama could have remained in office while we tightened cybersecurity and voted again. If Trump won again, fair and square, it would at least be what the people wanted instead of the proven ability of Russian intelligence and the possibly infiltrated FBI to sway an election.

All of the sudden, The Americans doesn’t seem like a TV show anymore, but a documentary. All you need to know about the show, and you can watch past seasons on Amazon Prime Video, is that it is about KGB operatives pretending to be Americans embedded in the DC suburbs to look as normal as possible, despite doing things like bugging a clock in Caspar Weinberger’s office. It does not take place in present day, but it seems as if history is repeating itself as the “woke” and politically active are doomed to watch.

Dan brought up the point that it was a shame that we weren’t protesting for anyone. It’s not like anyone from the administration showed up to listen. In fact, as we passed Trump’s hotel, there wasn’t a single face watching from the windows out of curiosity. However, the power was not in getting the administration to listen. The power was having almost half a million people show up for safe space, peaceful congregation that no one could take away from us. It made us all feel better that President Trump’s awful deeds did not represent us, and there was no way we were going to stop fighting. There will be more protests, but this was a “welcome to your first full day” present. If you look at the pictures from the inauguration, there seemed to be an exponentially larger crowd right at his front door.

Not only were there Americans walking the streets, but Canadians who’d driven or flown down, and a contingent from Ireland as well. I am sure that many more countries were represented, but the Canadians were wearing easily identifiable maple flag clothing and the Irish had protest signs to make them equally noticeable. I also wished that somewhere, somehow, the Obama family was watching, not able to attend because they would have been mobbed… not in a bad way, but more like people attaching themselves to their pant legs and begging them not to go. The Secret Service could never have prepared enough.

The police and military presence was on point, not there to interrupt but to observe, and I thanked the military (as I always do) for their service. At one point, the car that was parked in the middle of all those people was called away, and I couldn’t help but think that of all the units they could have called, the car stuck in the middle of hundreds of thousands of people wouldn’t have been my first choice. It was slow going for them because there was no room to move out of the way. And first, all the protest signs had to be removed from the windows. The cops joked with us that the signs had to come down because they’d been called away, but we weren’t the ones they were worried about in terms of turning over or burning out their car.

It was amazing how many different perspectives were represented, from listening to religion over science to pro-choice to immigration and welcoming the stranger in accepting refugees. There was not one message, but ALL THE THINGS. It felt good not to be a single-issue march, but solidarity in all beliefs.

As an INFJ visionary, I was constantly reminded not of how things are, but how they could be. Even I was astonished at my ability to rise above my introverted nature, willing to join in because I knew I was making history and writing about it all day in my head. I wished I had Wil Wheaton’s “I’m Blogging This” t-shirt, but it was too cold at some points to wear it without layers. At others, the people were so jam-packed that I had to take off my jacket and sweater, because even though it was in the 40s, the crowd was so tight that body heat was radiating everywhere.

I sort of felt bad that I hadn’t bought an outfit especially for the march, but I did try. I was walking through a store and found the perfect long-sleeved t-shirt, which said “Fight Like a Girl….” However, it was not in the women’s section and though boys’ clothes fit me, girls’ clothes do not. They did not have my other perfect t-shirt, a famous conversation between Mia Hamm and her coach:

Coach: You run like a girl.
Mia: If you ran a little faster, you could run like a girl, too.

Women power was self-evident, empowering and humbling at the same time. I took all my women friends with me, the angels on my shoulder. Dana and Argo and Notorious and The L___nator and Lindsay and my mother. I carried them with me in spirit, because the idea of carrying them physically was just too funny… a lot of ass and a little shoulder.

There were so many people I wanted to see that I just didn’t run into, impossible in a crowd of that size. Giles and Zaid brought their male babies with a sign that said “Two Dads, Two Sons, Four Feminists.” For those just joining us, Giles was my voice teacher at University of Houston, and I couldn’t be prouder that he’s here now… one of the people truly trying to make a difference. Giles’ home country is Canada, and though there are plenty of Conservatives there, I wonder every day what our country would be like if our Conservatives, like theirs, could just get past the politics of kindness. Universal health care, women’s rights, and gay marriage are done. There’s no fighting about it anymore. How far along would we be as a country if those things were settled as well?

I am pretty sure that they would be had the Republican Party hadn’t just been bodyslammed by crazy, trying to convince people that Donald Trump is a Christian with those values at heart. I think the Two Corinthians would disagree. What the pro-lifers don’t seem to get is that with universal health care, the fear of bringing a baby into the world in poverty is alleviated, thus resulting in less abortions. It seems as if pro-lifers think that all people who seek abortions are well to-do and using abortion as mere birth control, not trying to avoid a situation where a mother cannot possibly take care of her child. It has always been my belief, echoed by others, that if Republicans were really so concerned about children’s lives, they’d be lined up around the block with bottles and blankets for the poor children already here… never trusting the science behind abortion, trusting in their religion that life begins at conception, when Judaic law offers so such limitation. I believe that the “point of viability” argument is a reasonable compromise, with the exception of aborting fetuses that would never survive outside of the mother’s womb. As Molly Ivins pointed out, there are no mothers who don’t anguish over a late term abortion, as if they waddle past a Planned Parenthood clinic after carrying a baby that long and deciding parenthood just isn’t for them. When we talk about late-term abortions, we are talking about children whose brains and organs have not developed, not carelessness.

I also don’t understand why you can’t be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time. Pro-lifers seem to equate pro-choice with pro-death, and try to legislate all women’s choices for them. For a lot of people, including cases of rape, an abortion is just not something they can wrap their brains around, but at the same time, believe wholeheartedly that it is not their job to make those choices for all women, because they cannot imagine the situations under which abortion might make sense for others, and don’t want or need to try. It’s not their job, and they know it. Just because those laws have become popular does not make them correct.

Even Barry Goldwater (AuH2O) tried to warn us:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

The Religious Right is neither, and we are fighting a “divine right of kings” mentality. It’s one of the reasons these marches are so important. The Republicans may not be listening, but it’s about getting people fired up for change, especially in the Midterms, where checks and balances might be restored. People are beginning to pick up the phones and call their Congressmen, even people who hate the phone, because it is far more effective than an e-mail or a letter.

My feelings about this are muddled and clear at the same time, because while I am all for getting in touch with Congress, it feels like two years is so far away. I have never felt more disenfranchised and more powerful at the same time.

It’s only been a few days, and already I am exhausted…. but not a fatigue that will stop me from joining the fight. Hope is not dead, and Jesus dealt with governments much worse than this (the Sanhedrin & the Romans). Especially as an introvert, my Jesus is distressing me out of my comfort.

We ended the day debriefing at Los Tios Grill, which is never bad.

My brain has been scrambled and fried since I lost my mother. This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve been on an “up,” hypomania that allows me four hours of sleep a night, if that. The flip side is that I am very productive during these hours, so it is not all bad. It’s kind of like a superpower that I don’t know when or if will come. Most of the time, my Bipolar II presents as a down with very few ups. I do not cycle more than a few days a month, and sometimes I skip it entirely. I do not know whether this is my natural cycle, or if my medication helps (sarcasm because downs are sometimes intolerable). But I do know that when I swing upward, I am happier. It feels good to be productive, to want to go outside, to want to live life to the fullest rather than sitting in my room hoping that something will happen.

It will make me feel a lot better about being in a huge crowd this weekend at the Women’s March. I haven’t decided who I’m going with, because I might go with the UCC, and I might go with my friends. They’re trying to decide if they want to march with another group, or if they want to get their own group together. However, if I go with the UCC, it’s not like I won’t be with friends. I don’t know who from our church will be there, but I’m guessing Matt will, and that is enough. I am greatly hoping that men do not feel excluded from marching for women’s rights, because some of the best feminists I know are male UCC ministers.

It comes from an example that Jesus taught in one story about Martha and Mary. Martha gets hacked off that she’s doing all the cooking and cleaning (as Larry Gipson once said, churches love Marthas… not the hacked off part, but those that see cooking and cleaning as ministry, because it is). But Mary wanted to sit at Jesus’ feet with the rest of the Disciples and listen to what was being said, and Jesus welcomed her, even though in that time and place it Was. Not. Done. Jesus’ feminist example has echoed through time as Christianity has become more and more progressive, although there are still pockets where women are not allowed to preach, being “relegated” to Sunday school teachers because that is what’s seen as women’s work. I recognize that teaching children is perhaps even greater than preaching to the masses, but it is also an incredible glass ceiling (*squints hard at Fundamentalists*).

However, society will leave them behind, and that version of Christianity must change or die.

I have my own feelings about becoming the kind of person God has asked me to be, because sometimes I feel entirely unworthy, and at others, I know that unworthiness is unwarranted because no one in the Bible that Jesus ever called in the New Testament, or God called in the Old, was ever the type person you’d expect to wear the mantle. My saving grace is that I keep working on myself so that I am becoming a vessel instead of focusing on the parts of my heart that have turned black and need cleansing, because I am realizing one day at a time that those black spots can be cleaned with hard work. I have a long and interesting history of being emotionally messed up, and it is my goal before I am finished with grad school to be able to work without passing on my flaws to others.

It is already beginning, but there is a staircase, and I am somewhere in the middle of it, ever climbing toward the top. Perhaps it is Jacob’s Ladder, and perhaps I am building my own spiral. I can promise you that the pericope of Jacob wrestling with the angel resonates with me deeply, and in some ways, my emotional “stuff” to deal with are where God has touched my hip. I can only hope to heal the limp… Ironic only because my sciatica is a constant reminder physically of the road forward in therapy.

Every day, I make a choice to leave my past behind, or to continue to ruminate about it, trying to figure out where and why I went wrong. It is the natural dance of intimacy, getting closer to finding my true self and alternately running away from it. I know that I have been running since I was a teenager, and now it is time to stop. I have an incredible wealth of resources at my disposal now that Vesta takes my insurance again. Perhaps today is the day I will go back, because I have to take advantage of the productivity while it lasts.

The rest of the time, I am content to sit at my computer and send out resumés, because that takes barely any energy at all. I have also sent out applications for things that make money, but don’t require a lot of brain power, like working at a grocery store. I don’t know that it will make me happy, but what I do know is that I can save my brain power for writing as opposed to being tethered to my laptop 24 hours a day. I am capable of that life, and have often done it, and what I have learned is that it keeps me busy enough that I don’t have time to think about where I am going and whether it is a direction or a distraction.

I will have time to think about it on vacation. I haven’t had a vacation in probably ten to fifteen years, and my father and my sister want me to meet them in Orlando to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I have tried copycat recipes of butterbeer, and I am hoping that the real thing is better. I also hope they have a bar, because I would like to try a Firewhisky… even though I am very particular about whisky and scotch. Peat moss makes me gag, because the nose is what I call “Band-Aids,” or at least the smell when you used to have to open the old tins. So, my particular advice is to stay away from Islay. I am the type person that will try anything once, but in this case it did not work out in my favor.

And it’s not like I didn’t try the best of the best. My friend David bought me a shot of The Balvenie, so if you’re going to try peat flavored whisky, I started at the top. It just wasn’t my thing. I would rather have a Diet Coke.

I’m excited about going to the park(s), and will definitely bring my Chuy’s “Expecto Burrito” t-shirt. Speaking of which, my dad got me a gift certificate for Chuy’s for Christmas, and though I did have two meals, I spent most of it on t-shirts, because their design team is so fabulous. One has the fish with Walter White’s hat and sunglasses and says “Heisenchuy.” One says “Super Tex-Mex Brothers,” and is a recreation of Super Mario Brothers in 8-bit for the original NES.

Before I go, I want to get a pair of cargo pants, because even though they’re not in fashion anymore, I would prefer it to carrying a bag through the park, and my stuff would be kept safe with snaps and buttons on the pockets. I may also activate my old iPhone 5c(heap) for the trip, because my Samsung is *huge.* I’d look like I had a tumor. Actually, perhaps I’ll get them today because they’d be handy for the march on Saturday as well. If, God forbid, I get arrested, I’ll at least be comfortable while I’m waiting for my buds to bail me out. I can’t imagine that with 200-400 thousand people that it would happen, but stranger things have happened, and strange things tend to happen to me. I’m also planning on going to the Metro station to fill up my card so I won’t have to wait in line for the machines. The tourists alone, oy vey.

I really want to write more because we haven’t talked in a while, but I need to get moving. Possibly more later- we shall see.

Love you miss you mean it. 🙂

When I was in middle school, we got the call on the Saturday before a holiday that my mother’s father had died. My mother had a children’s choir program the next morning, so there was no way we could take off for Lone Star immediately, about a five and a half hour drive from Houston if you’re going the speed limit…….. My mother, instead of calling everyone and postponing the program (which everyone would have understood), got up like a champ and conducted the hell out of that program. It is one of the times that I remember her as a true hero, because she was able to put away her grief for a few hours, an impossible feat, and get it handled….. literally the Olivia Pope of choir directors.

I wish I could remember more specific details, like what the program entailed and whether my sister was a soloist (I think she was, actually, and that might have gone into her decision as well). But the take-home message is just how much my mother worked with grace under fire. Unlike my mother, my grandfather did not die suddenly. He’d been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, the aggressive kind where it started with his throat muscles and worked down so that he could not eat without a feeding tube. Because of this, my grief was tempered, because I had a long time to process the situation… unlike my mother, who we learned from her autopsy that it was indeed an embolism that blew in her leg which killed her almost instantly.

Our family friend, Suzanne Wales, came to the funeral and played the piano, and accompanied me as I played Amazing Grace on my trumpet. As usual, I was calm during crisis with an immense delayed reaction. Perhaps I take after my mother more than I thought.

These memories are why I am praying for my choir director today. She has made the decision to show up and conduct despite receiving the news that her father died. Grace under fire just as my mother was all those years ago. We have bonded over losing our mothers recently, and knowing her is painful and cathartic. The only time I ever really cry at church anymore is when she is playing a piano solo, because she sounds so similar to my mother that it gets me every time.

Praying for her is my way of letting art flow through me, whether it’s hers, mine, or ours as a collective choir. There is nothing in the world that would keep me from church today, because I know her pain. I have seen it with my own eyes. I can only hope that my love for her shines in them, because on days like this, it’s important for her to see it. She has supported me beyond measure as I sing through my own grief and pain. Now it’s my turn to return that favor.

Please join me in prayer, all over the world, because the art of prayer is the thread of humanity that runs through us all, the art that sustains us through good wishes for others in their distress. I know I have felt all sorts of energy from the rest of the globe, from the UK to Australia to Romania to Africa to Scandinavia. All I ask today is that you send it her way, too.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

I didn’t fall asleep until about 0400 because I made the mistake of watching Snowden at 2100. I thought I didn’t care about privacy because I didn’t have any, anyway (I’ve had a wallet stolen and Dana accidentally gave my passport to Goodwill). However, this was beyond my wildest dreams in terms of the power of the NSA/CIA/DIA/etc. As you can tell by the time of this posting [Editor’s Note: I started writing at 0830.], it didn’t take long before I woke back up just as freaked. If there’s anything that the movie points out, it’s that just because something is ruled illegal doesn’t mean that the intelligence community won’t do it, anyway. I’m not worried about access to my Facebook account- it’s all public, anyway. But access to every e-mail I’ve ever written, my phone, and my web cams on both my laptop and desktop? I am doing my best to remain in chill mode, because I have been sure since the Internet became mainstream that I didn’t have private information anymore. I just had information. But there’s one scene where the NSA is watching a Muslim woman and she starts to take off her clothes and they don’t not watch, because they’ve activated her web cam from their SCIF (Secure Contained Information Facility). The scariest part is that this could be dramatization for a movie, or it could be exactly the type behavior that Snowden was trying to highlight. The things that Snowden told the public were being fought internally, and nothing changed. I can’t necessarily support “telling family secrets,” and I can’t decide if I am better off for having seen the movie or not.

Because it’s Oliver Stone, there are real news clips mixed in with the dramatization, and I can’t recommend it highly enough as a good movie. I can promise that the issues it presents are complicated and there’s no easy answer. I have friends on both sides of the aisle, those that think he’s a traitor and a hero. I don’t know what the hell to think. I am able to see both sides of the equation, and just how involved the dialogue must be. Thus, my sleep last night was mostly reduced to sneezing and my eyes closed for a second. Who knows if I am a third or fourth connection to someone that deserves to be watched? How would I even know? I am glad that I am taking anti-anxiety medication, because even if I can’t turn off my brain about this, I’m not having any physical reactions to it. When the credits rolled, though, I was nauseous. By then, my medication had worn off and I couldn’t take any more until this morning. I have to be really careful with the clonazepam, because overuse tends to cause addiction and that is the last rabbit hole I need in my life. It would be easy to accomplish given the amount of stress and grief I’ve been under lately. Even with my mother dying, I still managed to get my savings to last until recently, because I greatly underestimated the time it would take me to get a job. Being a freelancer helps, but it’s not enough. The best I’m doing is expanding my network in hopes of meeting someone that can point me in the right direction.

It’s the same in terms of working for the church as a volunteer. It may also lead to something paid because on the social communications committee, I’m meeting other people who do what I do, which for the church is responsible, measured responses and in my own life, whoring my dirty laundry for money (explain your job badly). But the thing is, I don’t write for anyone else but me. If money comes from it, it’s a blessing, but it is not in any way necessary. Although I have to say that my favorite donation came from a woman who said you must have custom fonts. At the time, my reaction was you get me. You really, really get me. 😛

This is because any money that comes through goes right to WordPress.com and professional development. So far, I’ve been able to upgrade to the pro version of WordPress and get a subscription to LinuxJobber.com. Speaking of which, I need to create a CentOS virtual machine… more of a reminder to myself than telling you about it. That’s just an added bonus to hold me accountable. Although, wait. I don’t have to install anything on my local hard drive, because I can get a free VM in the cloud thanks to LinuxJobber and Amazon Web Services. It would just be nice to be able to learn stuff when I’m offline. It doesn’t happen often, but if my internet goes down, I’m not SOL, either.

This won’t make a lot of sense to non-computer people, but my computer has this inane thing where access to the extensions that make it possible to run a 64-bit guest operating system are soft-coded into the BIOS, and I Googled it, and there should be a BIOS update that fixes it, but so far, all of the BIOS updates I’ve downloaded haven’t included that one feature I really need. However, my computer is fast enough and has enough RAM that I can run a 32-bit guest operating system, and I have. Right now I’m running Windows 10 and can’t decide if I want to dual boot or just install VirtualBox. I had to switch back to Windows when my wireless adapter didn’t work natively in Linux and I have to install the Windows XP driver to get it to work, which reduces my download speeds to absolute shit. In order to properly use my internet connection in Linux, I have to tether my Android, which comes with two problems. The first is that I can’t use file transfer and tethering at the same time. The second is that there’s a large chance I could burn out my phone battery from keeping it plugged in so long. My laptop is fully capable of running multiple operating systems with VirtualBox, but I took it to the church so they wouldn’t have to provide a computer for me, and I got a refurbished desktop for Christmas, which is why I had to add USB wireless in the first place. Overall, I am extremely happy with it. Windows 10 doesn’t suck, and I’ve missed Fallout 3. The second is that the browser plugins are just better… I can use any browser for anything, which is important because I switch between Chrome and Firefox *a lot.*

It is shameful for me to admit this. It really is. However, if I upgrade to the Anniversary edition of Windows, I can install BASH, which won’t mean anything to you except that I’ll have a linux shell inside a Windows environment, and can run all the applications I’ve come to know and love that don’t make an open source Windows version. The easiest solution would be to take my desktop to the church and bring my laptop home, but my desktop is much, much faster than my laptop and has 3x the RAM. Plus, in Linux, my printer works perfectly, but the scanner won’t work over wireless… and I think it is lazy and pointless to buy a printer cable.

The entire reason I got an Android was to work in Linux natively, and I am surprised that the one feature that doesn’t work in Windows that does work in Linux is the media transfer protocol. Nine times out of ten, when I plug it in, it won’t even show up as a drive so I can’t drag and drop my music and videos. Regardless, it has a lot of features that my iPhone wouldn’t even touch, like having a fingerprint reader that allows me to log into my phone, Bank of America, and LastPass. I feel that feature alone was worth the price, even though I didn’t pay it… it was a Christmas present, too. Although it was a deep discount to get a refurbished one and take it to AT&T rather than upgrading my phone there. It’s not the latest and greatest phone, but it is to me. The fact that iPhones do not have an expansion slot is crazy. Mine is 128 GB so that it will last for a while. I use Handbrake to convert my movies to Android size, and I have a habit of using a LARGE amount of space for podcasts so that I don’t have to stream them in the car. Handbrake is invaluable because it backs up encrypted DVDs and Blu-Rays, although I do not have a Blu-Ray drive in my desktop. Perhaps that is one of the next orders of business, but first is a TV card so that I can run my cable through Kodi and record my shows onto my 3TB external drive. Thank GOD it comes in a Windows version that is identical to the Linux version, because I would be lost without it. It doesn’t have plugins for Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu, but there are so many video addons I do use, and here’s a list:

• ABC Family (Freeform)
• Crackler
• TED Talks
• Syfy
• Travel Channel
• Geek & Sundry
• Linux Gamecast
• This Week in Tech
• PBS
• PBS Kids (even at 39, still addicted to WordGirl)
• WABC
• WCBS
• WNBC
• YouTube

There are also programs called “Scrapers” that will download the subtitles and movie posters for my movies, which makes the interface beautiful. The OTA channel plugins often post shows before Hulu, because they’re recorded live. I also really, really love the PBS plugin, because my favorite show in the entire world is Frontline. Second to that is Mercy Street, because most of it takes place in my old hood, Alexandria, VA… and if there is a third, it’s American Experience. With the Travel Channel plugin, I have access to No Reservations. The last episode I watched was Finland, because my favorite episode of NR is Iceland, where Tony basically bitches the entire time about the cold/food and it is seriously entertaining.

I was looking forward to more of that, but as it turns out, he liked Finland much better. I would totally move there in a heartbeat if I wasn’t tired of moving and I know I would be gobsmacked by the weather- considering even though it was a lot warmer in Portland, the constantly grey skies undid me. After ten years, it was time to come home, whether it was Houston or DC. I do like their approaches to education, health care, a living wage whether you have a job or not, and the fact that if I got pregnant, my baby could live in a cardboard box. Also, there’s one train that serves beer and wine so you can have one on your train ride home. What’s not to love except for the soul-crushing weather?

Plus, Linux was invented in Finland. How can I not love that? Although ironically, Linus Torvalds lives in Portland now.

In other news, I am meeting an old, old friend at SBUX this afternoon. She was in my 7th and 8th grade classes at Clifton, and now works as a journalist here. I’m excited because she introduced me to an organization working to mobilize Montgomery County in terms of calling Congressmen and just generally trying to decide what we’re going to do over the next 2-4 years. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Midterms are going to be exciting. The hardest part we face is that this area went blue, so in some ways, we are preaching to the choir.

If this organization is non-partisan, just trying to combat injustice rather than being a mouthpiece for the Democratic party, I want to include Matt and Christ Church to it… because this was not a typical election. Even some Republicans are terrified, because this is not about a Republican administration, but decency and humanity. I don’t think we’d be this outraged had someone like Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush won. They have their issues, but they have two things going for them. The first is that they are not batshit crazy. The second is that I doubt either would have turned the country into a theocracy, because gay marriage and abortion were settled by the Supreme Court, and I doubt either one would try to overturn those cases.

I agree with President Obama, though. If the Republicans can come up with a solution to health care that is actually better than the ACA, I will personally support it. I believe that chance is less than zero, though, and perhaps by a large margin. I am grateful that I am covered by state Medicaid, and even though that may be affected, too, it stands a better chance of existing than the federal Affordabe Care Act. Nicknaming it “Obamacare” is both excellent and terrible. It reminds people that POTUS was responsible for passing legislation that truly helped a lot of people… and mobilized Republicans to paint Obama as the anti-Christ for changing the way health care is handled in this country. Before I applied for Medicaid, I got a federal stipend of $250, which made my insurance 37 cents a month. I can easily afford it, but the truth is that Maryland’s Medicaid program provides so much more coverage for free. There’s no deductible, my doctor’s appointments are free, and my medication costs are reduced to a dollar a bottle. Any insurance I’ve ever gotten through work has never been that good. If, God forbid, I have to have surgery or something, I will not have to file for bankruptsy in the process due to co-pays. With surgery and major illnesses such as cancer or an autoimmune disease, co-pays go up to thousands of dollars.

I am a huge fan of single-payer, because it takes away the Golden Handcuffs. No one is stuck in a job they hate because COBRA is ridiculously expensive. Also, when I was working for Marylhurst University, because Dana and I weren’t married her insurance had to be taken out of my salary at full price, which was $600 a month. I gladly paid it because she needed it, but it was still a huge pain in the ass when my straight coworkers paid a tenth of that to add a dependent. Alert Logic was on point. I was able to add Dana, and even though it was taxable income, it was also a tenth of the price at MU.

Single-payer would have saved us a ton of money, although I am sure that’s been changed since national gay marriage is a thing…. for now. Right now, it pays to be single, because if I get a job, not adding a dependent will make my health insurance either free or greatly subsidized.

I am terrified of a Republican president and a Republican Congress all at once. There are no checks and balances on repealing the progress that has been made over the last eight years, and I’m glad that President Obama is remaining in DC until Sasha graduates, because it will enable him to campaign on a huge platform for the midterms.

I am also greatly disappointed that Merrick Garland and President Obama will not become Supreme Court justices, because especially with Obama, as a Constitutional Law professor, it’s a job he might have enjoyed even more than being President. I’m not sure that he even wanted to be nominated, but at the same time, I don’t think it is any less true that he would have made an incredible “Supreme.”

I’m also incredibly disappointed that Ben Carson is such an idiot, because I think it would be interesting at this time in our lives to have an MD in The White House. But Carson seems to have gotten his medical degree from Bob’s College of Medicine & BBQ Pit. If Tiffany Anthony ever had any interest in becoming President, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat (see what I did there?). It also wouldn’t hurt to have a doctor on the Supreme Court… because there are no qualifications for being a Justice. It is traditional for them to be lawyers, but that’s just precedent. Anyone can be appointed if they make it through the vetting process, because in the Constitution, they are literally just Nine Guys in Robes (thanks to Ken Wall for that description). I’m not even sure that you have to have any degrees if you are smart enough.

It’s interesting to think of me getting a government job right now, because I am sure I would be a part of the rebellion that is starting as we speak, especially if I was a White Hat hacker, able to discover vulnerabilities and find SQL injections, rootkits, etc. Rootkits are of the devil, because you can actually overwrite memory as they’re working, so you can’t even see the running process. I am just not a math and science brain. I can teach someone how to use a computer and offer incredible tech support, but I am not the type person to whom programming/reverse engineering comes easily. However, maybe that wouldn’t matter in this administration. If Trump is any indication, I am qualified for any job. Any of them.

If I had aspirations in that area, it would be to work for “No Such Agency,” the only government institution that cares enough to listen. #tshirtwisdom I’ve seen it in two places. The first is the gift shop near Old Ebbitt Grill, and the second is at the Spy Museum. Especially after watching Snowden, it may go on my birthday list.

I do have a CIA baseball cap because my great uncle was a badass hero before I was born. However, I don’t wear it a lot because even though it’s just a tourist gimmick, I’ve noticed that other people look at me suspiciously, as if the CIA actually advertises. The rules for being in the intelligence community are roughly the same as Fight Club. The second is that it is black, and gathers all kinds of dust bunnies and dog hair, and I haven’t managed to get it clean in years.

And on that note, it’s time to get ready to meet “Ace.” I’m looking forward to sitting at the “cool kids’ table.” I finally think I’m worthy of it… and to be honest, it is exciting to think about my future in social justice rather than the grief that is threatening to undo me every single day. My mother would be so proud.

#beastmode engaged.

There’s really nothing better than waking up to the first snow of the season. It’s still exciting, you know, before it gets dirty, repetitive, and repetitive. The picture is through my window on the second floor, and I’m sure it would look better without the screen… I’m just not dumb enough to go outside without bundling up until I look like a queen-sized bed. I hear that if I don’t do that, I’ll eventually acclimate to the cold. I tried that in Oregon. It did not work.

I actually do have enough layers to make myself comfortable if I decide to venture out, but for right now, I am comfortable at my desk, just watching what may come. Capital Weather Gang  (they have a great Twitter feed, BTW) is predicting that it’s not over yet, but I’ll be surprised if we get the same unholy dump we got last year. In some areas, it was between a foot and 18 inches. I, however, have been known to be wrong. When I first moved to DC in April of 2015, there were still small patches of snow on the ground. It may not be that the first snow is heinous, but another storm to be determined later. That’s the thing about living on the east coast- it gets just as hot as Houston in the summer, but our winters last a lot longer.

I do a fair amount of complaining about the cold, but the truth is that I prefer it. I can always put on more layers, but in 100 degree heat, I’d have to be indecent before I was comfortable. But hey, no tan lines. #smallblessings

Right now I am listening to dogs barking with absolute delight as they play in the fluff… or at least, the big dogs are happy (Lincoln is a pit bull, Daisy is a BBD [Basic Black Dog, about 40lbs]. We have two Pomeranians (Sadie and Pixie) who are Just. Not. Impressed. I am imagining that their inner monologue runs thusly…. Peeing in the snow is FROWNED UPON IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT. I don’t blame them. I shiver violently just taking off my layers to get in the shower.

Because of this, I don’t shower that often. The winter is drying to my skin, so it’s not like it’s necessary, anyway. I guarantee that I am not doing any sweating, and I rarely put product in my hair because it’s so cold I have to wear a hat.

Sometimes I wear my Rice baseball cap, but most of the time I look like a hippy douche with one of those knit hats that look like it should have come with a bottle of patchouli oil and some sandalwood soap (not that there’s anything wrong with that…. chill, Portland).

As for bundling up, I’m set in terms of groceries, so the biggest decision I have to make today is what movie I’m going to watch, holding my soda with gloves on because it’s cold enough. If I get industrious, I may go out and take pictures… but that would involve putting on real pants, so don’t hold your breath. My electric blanket is heating up, and once I get under it, an Act of God wouldn’t get me to move.

Perhaps I’ll take pictures when I’m required to leave the house, like walking to choir practice. In the time it takes to scrape the windshield and get the defroster working, I could be there already.

Tomorrow’s service centers around the baptism of Christ, wading in the water… however, Christ never mentioned what to do if the water was frozen…. walk on top of it, I guess.

Everyone in my family contributed pictures for the slideshow that played during my mother’s visitation at Clayton Funeral home. My stepfather, Forbes, sent me a DVD, but I have a habit of losing them and this was too important not to back up to my own drives and the web. Even if you didn’t know my mother, I think you’ll enjoy it… especially if you want to see embarrassing pictures of me as a child.

The one thing I want to point out is that the background music is comprised of piano solos, but my mother is not the soloist. It’s kind of eerie how well her style is captured, though. It makes me wish I had more recordings of her, and perhaps my grandparents have some. My father’s father has a huge repository of family video and audio. In fact, I’m fairly certain that some of the pictures in this slideshow originally came from their house, because our parsonage burned down when I was 11, and it was “Nanny & Paw-Paw” that came to our rescue in terms of all the photos we lost.

My favorite pictures in the set are watching my mother prepare for me, her firstborn, and she never missed a chance to call me that to my face. I don’t think that parents actually have a favorite, but I do think I had a special place in her heart because I was the first to call her “Mom.”

I wish I could tell you why I’ve had no energy for writing lately. I’ve written a few things in Word documents meant to be published later, but when I went back and read them, I didn’t like them. They were mostly about the New Year’s Eve party I went to and just meandered off into nothing… not that I haven’t done that before, but looking at it with fresh eyes convinced me that I needed the “Post” button to keep myself from doubting what I was about to put out there. Web sites that remain static do not get traffic, but at this point, I’m not worried about it. I’ve needed time to reorient and get with the program, and you may see more content and you may not. Writing is such a personal thing, and I have to have a life to write about it.

I got invited to two New Year’s Eve parties, actually, but I decided to stay on this side of the river rather than going down to the Alexandria waterfront, because that would have meant a 40 minute trip home with a bunch of drunks wandering down GW Parkway and 495. Besides, not only was it New Year’s Eve, it was also Ingrid’s birthday party. We toasted with sips of champagne at both 8:34 PM AND midnight. It made me feel all warm inside, especially since we were sitting outside by a campfire, just talking and joking. It was the best of both worlds… a huge party raging inside with just a small, intimate group outside. So, even though it was cold, I preferred sitting with the small group and making each other laugh than wandering around the house trying to find people I knew.

One of the people I know from choir told me a little bit about her life in the theater. She was backstage tech before she retired, and her biggest story was meeting James Earl Jones before Star Wars. As you can imagine, I was totally down with that. She really wants to spend some time with me, so I imagine that there will be outings in our future, and I am trying hard not to be the anxious spazzbasket I’ve become in terms of wanting to get out of the house and make friends.

Leslie #1 and her husband, David, were also there (everyone in the choir was invited), which alleviated my party anxiety greatly. Leslie is a judge, and for a while she worked out of town and I was not in the choir. So I sat with David and my nickname became “Substitute Leslie.” They asked me what got me back in the choir, and I said, “the chairs.” I got a big laugh over that one because everyone knows that our pews are hard backed and force you to sit up straight as if you’re attending a service in Amish country.

I have mentioned this before, but I have a corkscrew scoliosis in my back that make it almost impossible for me to sit up straight without pain, both in my back and radiating down the nerves in my legs, especially in those pews because the back of them hits the knot in my spine. Once I get approved for Maryland Health Connection, one of my first orders of business is to see if acupuncture and chiropractic services are covered. If they’re not, I’ll go and hit both of them up once I’m making my own money again. Angela the Med & my dad looked at my back years ago, and told me I’d probably have to have surgery on it in my 60s, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have options if surgery is out of the picture until then…. it’s only 20 years away now. I’ve waited longer for other things. Piece of cake.

I also need to get back to Vesta, because when I transitioned to insurance at DSI, they didn’t take it. I lost Leighton as my nurse practitioner and Sarah as my therapist, who are both probably wondering why I never came back… and not for lack of trying. They were the first people who believed in me, that I didn’t have to explain over and over that I wasn’t being catfished and that Argo was a real person with real feelings that never just tried to fuck with me for the hell of it… probably because I never used her real name in therapy and they thought I didn’t know it… that she was a screen name and not someone with whom I’d actually connected. However, this was in my intake evaluation at Montgomery County, and I can’t help but feel that they might have mixed me up with someone who had schizophrenia or something. They see all sorts of crazy in that place, so I can’t say I blame them. I am sure it was an honest mistake, but I was hacked off that they were listening to reply and not listening to hear me. As far as Bipolar II goes, I have a relatively mild case, my hypomania presenting with insomnia and not much else. However, what I didn’t know is that my anxiety was so bad that I needed medication for it, and once those meds were added to my protocol, it opened me up to a world in which I could function when I wasn’t “on a down.”

Argo and I both got into heated arguments, but there was never a time in which I didn’t feel like I needed her friendship, even though it has never extended past e-mail. As you can imagine, as a writer, words on a page are sacred, and reached me in a lot of ways that in-person conversations never would’ve, because it would have taken so much longer for me to open up. My favorite conversation on the subject happened between Dana and me:

Leslie: One of the reasons that Argo is so sacred to me is that when I’m writing to her, it feels like I am entering my God space, and though I can’t know if God is listening, I know that she is.

Dana, with tears in her eyes: Go tell her. Right now.

Having someone listen to my feelings at a time when I really needed it was a life raft of enormous proportions, and I miss that day-to-day of alternately deep conversation and laughter that made me double over.

That being said, my biggest mistake in that relationship (and I made a metric fuck tonne) was not realizing sooner that although she could listen to me with an unbiased ear, she also wasn’t trained in dealing with mental illness and I needed a professional. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened had I had that AHA! moment sooner, but I’ve stopped beating myself up over it (most days- it’s a deep scar).

It also might have calmed Dana’s fears that those teenage butterflies I felt over the dopamine rush of meeting someone too cool for school, because with a professional, it might have happened on her timeline rather than mine. Moreover, it might have stopped the emotional hand grenades she threw at me by using Argo for her own purposes to try and get every fight to devolve from our own problems into the “threat” Argo was to her. Argo was never a threat. It was all my own stuff to deal with after opening the Pandora’s Box of emotional abuse and trying to figure out which end was up.

I literally felt like I was being yanked by my stomach into a different and frightening world, because everything I thought I knew was upended into catastrophe. I couldn’t stop beating myself up for everything I didn’t know, or in my mind, wasn’t smart enough to figure out. I started to forgive myself when I realized I was just a child at the time, reinforced by the fact that my eighth grade history teacher saw it and didn’t know what to do. She told me that she has carried guilt over that fact for over 20 years, and I hope I have done my best to release her from it, because at the time, I never would have talked to her about anything at any time. As the “enabler,” you always protect the path, and she knew members of my congregation at St. Mark’s and even though chances are it never would have made it back to them, I couldn’t bring myself to open up even if the odds were one in a million. So, even though I was a child and Diane was an adult, I still take responsibility for the choice I made not to talk, and it wasn’t and never will be her fault…. because there were plenty of people trying to get me to say something, and I ran away from all of them, not just my teacher…. for two reasons. The first is that because the abuse was psychosexual/emotional and not physical, it didn’t feel real. The second is that because Diane is a lesbian, I just thought that the adults around me were pushing their homophobic agenda and not trying to protect me.

Even leaving the psychosexual abuse part out of it, the emotional abuse was intense and powerful, because she was sharing secrets with me that had no business being passed from an adult to a child.

I also take responsibility for the choices I made once I was an adult, because the statute of limitations had run out and I still didn’t get a therapist and try to resolve both the boiling rage and the intense sadness I felt over the situation. I forgive, but do not forget the e-mail I wrote her detailing what had been done to me, and she offered to come to a therapy session with me, taking it back almost immediately. She wanted me to talk to her partner, Susan, instead.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Susan was not listening with an unbiased ear, didn’t believe a word I said, and defended Diane to the death. To add insult to injury, I wrote to Diane after the meeting, and she said that Susan’s feelings on the subject were not an accurate representation of hers. My e-mail back only said WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE TALKED TO ME YOURSELF. I felt betrayed because I’d known Diane almost twice as long as Susan, and there was no way that Susan ever could have understood the issues between Diane and me because she wasn’t there. Susan had me pegged as this Single White Female character who was just coming to Portland to steal Diane’s life and friends… as if Diane had never written to me and said she thought it was a good idea to move there when I turned 18 so I could get out of the Bible Belt and later, when I came to visit, told me I looked really happy in Portland and perhaps I should look for a job. She introduced me to a whole host of people, some of whom I talk with regularly to this day.

I didn’t just make my own friends, I made my own urban family. The worst part was when we were in the middle of a sushi restaurant, Diane crying her eyes out because I’d made my own choice to marry Dana (or as close as we could get with a domestic partnership), as if making this choice had anything to do with her. She got on board eventually, but it was a rough haul, because I really didn’t understand why she was so upset. If I had to make a guess, it was twofold. The first is that she really didn’t know Dana that well and didn’t see everything I saw in her. The second is that I didn’t have a big church wedding where she was invited.

However, that was never the plan. The plan was to separate out the legal aspects of our relationship and have a holy ceremony later, because our parents were so far away that we wanted to be the people who made life decisions for each other because if something serious happened, there was no way our families could get there in time, especially Dana’s, because IAD to PDX is a long damn flight…. even further than the four hours and 23 minutes it would have taken for my parents to arrive. There was also the possibility that Dana’s parents, because they did not support our relationship, would try to pull rank over me and Dana wouldn’t have gotten what she told me she needed and wanted, so we both felt we needed protection from it.

By the time Dana asked our priest to marry us, it was long after we’d worked out our legal obligations to each other and I wouldn’t have wanted Diane there, anyway. She made it clear that she was free to drop in and out of my life at will, but if I emoted in kind, she ran like a house on fire.

But those feelings aside, I had enormous fears about getting married in a church, because when I was growing up, being gay was still seen as a mental illness all its own, and all that internalized homophobia had to go somewhere. The Episcopal Church USA grew up, and I didn’t necessarily grow with it. My little kid attitude (after having come out to some people at 13 and the rest at 17) has stayed with me, even, in some ways, to this day. After Dana talked to our priest, I wrote to Argo and told her that even though I wanted to marry Dana, my thought process was what if I planned a wedding and nobody came? It wasn’t reality, but it was real to me.

I had to let go of a lot of anger that Dana talked to our priest without me, and it wasn’t a decision we made together…. mostly because Dana didn’t seem to have the internal Southern conservative views of which I was terrified…. or maybe she did, and was just much stronger than I was… a definite possibility.

In Houston, I was affectionate with her, but looked over my shoulder on every street to make sure we were in a safe neighborhood to do so. I, for instance, had no qualms about it in The Montrose, but outside of it, I am ashamed to say that my thought process sometimes where Dana was concerned was could you not be quite so gay? To say that I had a lot of issues that needed to be worked out in that area is an understatement.

It’s one of the reasons I love living in DC/Maryland. While Virginia still has its issues the further you get toward Richmond and beyond, I never have to look over my shoulder here, because the area is overwhelmingly liberal and supportive of gay rights. Even in 2001, before Kathleen and I separated, we thought about moving to Maryland for just that reason. Although, if I’m honest, I didn’t get a civil union in Vermont with Kathleen for love. I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me that I wanted to love her for the rest of my life. I needed a piece of paper because a PR spokesman for ExxonMobil told the Washington Blade that for gay couples who had legal proof of their union, they would honor it in terms of benefits.

I honestly don’t think they expected anyone to take them up on it, because we were the first couple that applied, and even though the PR spokesman had said the thing about benefits on the record, XOM hadn’t actually made a policy for it…. so they wrote one just for us. We worked with HR for about a month before the health insurance went through, but it’s an experience I’ll never forget…. being the “poster children” for a notoriously conservative company and living to tell about it. I have also often wondered if that PR guy got to keep his job, because when we e-mailed a digital copy of our civil union certificate to HR, they had no idea what we were talking about. We did, however, make a ton of friends that way because we didn’t know that XOM had a GLBT group on the downlow and all of the sudden, we were heroes. I can only hope that in the 15 years since I left that it’s not on the downlow anymore.

I did get some blowback from it, though. I was a blogger on a different server, and one of the conservative engineers in my group (I worked for the Marine, Civil, Safety, and Technology division at ExxonMobil Research & Engineering, or EMRE) started leaving these nasty comments on my entries, and my boss read them, always having my back.

I’ve always had plenty of people who’ve had my back, and it’s only now that I’m learning to have my own. I come by it honestly, but that does not mean there isn’t room for growth and improvement, such as becoming the Writer in Residence at Christ Congregational. An e-mail just came through that the bulletin is ready to be published online, so I better get to it. Better living through technology, allowing me to work hard and pray on the spaces all at once…. because as always, it’s not just the words that matter, but the spaces in between.

White chocolate is not chocolate, but it had to do. I have to go grocery shopping in the worst way, and I had a ton of Lindor truffles left over from Christmas, so I ate a few………. Now my blood sugar is high enough that I can make it out the door, at the very least…. I’ll be able to shop without buying an entire aisle. I need so many things because I can’t bring myself to leave the house most days, which is good. I’ve managed to use up all the staples I’d bought previously and have avoided my temptation to eat out all at once. I wish I could feel embarrassed at my lack of productivity, but I don’t. My work is all Internet, all the time, so even if I’m still in my pajamas, I’m looking for jobs, writing for this web site, working for the church, etc. I may be wearing flannel pants, but it’s all getting done.

Where I feel ashamed is that I’ve let my personal life go by the wayside in terms of taking care of myself… not that all of the above isn’t helping. However, I just don’t want to talk to anyone, don’t want to engage. I just want to be left alone to my own devices most of the time.

The date that I went on to Kingbird in the Watergate was fun. I took the Metro so I could have a second drink if I wanted (a third and it’s hangover city, which is to be avoided at all costs). The first was some sort of whiskey shaken with something that had spices in it, served up. The second was a Stella Artois IN A GLASS. :P~~~~ (Inside joke, they know who they are). The funniest part is that Google Maps walked me right to Kingbird, but it was the back entrance and I had no idea how to get in. I ended up knocking on the glass until a waiter came to the door. The Watergate complex is immense, and if you don’t know where you’re going, there are just SO many ways to get lost.

But anyway, they had some excellent snacks to serve with the drinks, and I am embarrassed to say that since I hadn’t had dinner yet, I ate them like they were going out of style, especially the Sriracha peas. We didn’t make plans to get together again, but it was ok. I showed up, which is a win in my book regardless. I just need to do more of that stuff, you know, where I actually have to iron a shirt and polish my shoes. DC is such a mishmash in terms of getting dressed. DC is sometimes very formal, and sometimes I can’t tell that I’ve actually left Portland. It’s the same uniform here as it is there- pants, shirt, fleece… especially in hippy neighborhoods like Takoma Park. Takoma Park itself is a mishmash, because part of it is in DC and part of it is in Maryland. I think it can best be summed up in a conversation I had at church a couple of years ago.

Leslie: I feel like such a hipster in these brown pants.
Parishioner: Oh, don’t worry. Brown pants just mean you don’t work on The Hill.

Seriously, DC is so Portland sometimes. “Welcome to DC. Here’s your brown hoodie.”

It’s like living in two different worlds, and you can tell immediately which world you’re in based on clothing and Metro stop, as well as the cars parked in the neighborhoods where you’re walking. For instance, Georgetown is all new Mercedes and BMWs. Capitol Hill is old shared Mercedes and BMWs, with five or six staffers to a house.

I used to inhabit that sort of world, wearing skirt suits and panty hose every day to XOM. There were days I felt like a drag queen, but working there was, for the most part, fun…. as long as I put the fact that I was selling my soul to the devil in the back of my mind. There are all these reports about how Rex Tillerson is in bed with the Russian government, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they are Truth.™ Even in 2002, we were working on a project to extract oil from Sakhalin with the ice-breaker boats and everything. You now know the sum total of what I know about the project, but I think that’s enough to say that Rex Tillerson’s relationship with Russia is not new or exciting.

Now I work for companies who have no problem with the Dockers and t-shirt combo, which I never knew I valued until I had to spend almost an hour getting ready in the morning. Let’s not get stupid- I look amazing with my hair and make-up on point. But I’d much rather break it out when I want to instead of have to every day. Plus, because of my dyskinesia, I am awful at walking in heels. I’ll do it, but it’s not my favorite. I fall a lot more often, and as I get older, the falls are more severe…. which is why I didn’t even bring heels when I moved.

Yes, my clothes have a lot to do with not drawing male attention to myself, but they also keep me on my feet most of the time. Rarely have I ever fallen in my Chucks or Docs, even in the snow. I had a bad fall last winter, one that was narcotics worthy and yet, the narcotics still did nothing to touch it save heightening my “I don’t give a shit-o-meter.” I didn’t feel better until I got some Skelaxin on board and a lot of sleep to repair it with lactic acid refresh. The thing that really made the fall horrible was that I had my backpack on. Had I not, I might’ve had an easier time of making the fall more graceful and less painful. However, my backpack hit the ground a few seconds before I did, which made the muscles in my lower back seize. It hurt, but I went ahead and got on the bus, anyway. Several hours later, I couldn’t move. Luckily, Sam was home and came to get me and take me to the doctor.

I bring all this up because in the next couple of weeks we’re supposed to get several snow days in a row where one to three inches is predicted, without enough warmth to let some of the snow melt before it starts again. I can’t wait. I’m going to get some cream and vanilla extract at the store (I already have Sugar in the Raw™ & Splenda™) so that I can make snow ice cream, my mother’s favorite treat when she was a little girl. If she heard that it was snowing, she’d put one of my grandmother’s bowls on top of my grandmother’s car so that the next morning, there was clean, pure snow with which to work. My other favorite is just to gather enough snow to fill a Big Gulp™ and pour diet soda over it. Snow cokes are the best (which is not a trademark because everything in Texas is a coke….. “What kind of coke do you want?” “Grape.” ooooooh, now I’m thinking about a snow Purple Cow……).

Speaking of snow and cold, I’ve finally learned how to use my puffy jacket correctly. Just a t-shirt under it, because it has to soak up my body heat for maximum efficacy (yes, I really do talk like that). There can be layers over it, but if I wear a sweater or a long-sleeve t-shirt/Oxford under it, body heat is blocked from warming up the liner. I may go to Goodwill™ and see if I can find a London Fog™ so my butt doesn’t get cold when I sit down, but it’s not absolutely necessary. When it’s really, really cold I wear skiing silks under my Dockers.™ I like it because when I’m just wearing my skiing silks and a t-shirt, I look like a male ballerina. 🙂

Speaking of which, yesterday this woman at the pharmacy said, “excuse me, sir?” and when I looked up, said, “excuse me, ma’am?” and looked so embarrassed. I said, “I don’t care. Really.” I think she thought I was going to yell at her or something, but when you dress like I do, stuff like that happens all the time. Besides, I feel like I am just as in touch with my male side as I am with my female side, so neither one is a slam or a compliment. It just is. In fact, I imagine that pronoun mistakes happen a lot more than I think in DC because of the enormous amount of female soldiers in the area (Can I have your phone number? :P)

Lindsay helped me get in touch with my inner girly teenager over Christmas, because she gave me all sorts of Punk’d gifts. I am now the proud owner of a Justin Bieber singing electric toothbrush and red nail polish. The nail polish will come in handy because I need to start doing my own nails until I get a job. Then it’s back to acrylics, cut short so they are smooth and available for……………… typing.

It’s starting to really dawn on me just how long it’s been since I’ve been touched in any kind of romantic way, and it’s not a bummer in the slightest. I needed it. I had a lot of shit to own and figure out before I could be ready for anyone new, but now that it’s been almost two years, it’s not that I’m looking, I just notice these things. I notice how out of touch I am with myself in terms of burying myself in memories, which has come with both good and bad side-effects. The good is that I don’t want to hurt anyone the way I hurt Dana, Argo, L-Train, and Notorious. The bad is that I am wondering whether I am doing damage to myself or whether this much time in the desert is exactly what was needed for me to “heal thyself.” The best thing I can do in this situation is to hold the cognitive dissonance in my mind and realize that those things are both true. I am limiting myself by not putting myself out there, AND time to think has been invaluable. I liken it to when Dana and I became friends and all I needed was someone to talk to for hours at a time, without there being any pressure or need to be romantic. When I first appeared on her radar, I’d just had my heart put through a blender, because I was in an age-gap relationship that I wanted to work and she didn’t. Cut to me moving to Houston and meeting a couple with the exact same age difference as my own relationship where they were happy and so in love they couldn’t see straight and I was so jealous I could’ve spit nails. They were so affectionate that every time they kissed, I had to look away in my own pain.

It was the same way when Meag left me. I waited three years before I dated anyone else, and for ten I carried a small flame for her because that’s what first loves do to everyone (I think). It was not a flame of hope, more like “I wish I could meet someone for whom I had a tenth of the emotion.” I thought that person was Kathleen. As it turned out, not so much. Meag and I were sitting alone in an Ottawa SBUX when she said that she was sorry we’d never gotten to be partners as adults, something she thought we would have been very good at. I was glad that she said it in the way of an apology, but my heart and stomach clenched with pain. First loves are nothing to mess around with, and the pain kept getting worse. She said that because she treated me so badly, she thought she didn’t have the right to come back to me and say she was sorry and could we start over. I RAGED inside that she’d taken away my choice…. but perhaps she said it when the feeling behind it wasn’t that strong for her and gutted me.

It was so long ago that I have forgiven, but not forgotten how I felt in that moment. I didn’t find that relationship again until I was 29, about to turn 30. My 30th birthday party was a coming out of sorts, where all my friends got to find out that the thing they’d been thinking all these years was true…. Dana and I were in love with each other. We were still in the “get a room” phase and everyone at the table knew it. The looks on their faces were priceless. Yes, I was in love with Kathleen, but nowhere in our relationship did we have the depth of emotion that Dana and I did, because we spent so long taking care of each other as friends that there was no way either of us didn’t know what contract we were signing.

I suppose that’s what I’m waiting for now. Someone where it feels from the beginning that I’ve known them my whole life. It’s a tall order, but I am extraordinarily patient.

More patient than waiting for snow.

I went to pick up my nerve pills, cause everybody be wonderin.’ So I get there and the pharmacy tech hands me my prescriptions and I take them out to the car where my water bottle lives. I pick up the bottle marked clonazepam (Klonopin™) and take out two pills. I realize that they don’t look like clonazepam and there cannot possibly be 60 pills in the bottle. It was then that I realized it was escitalopram (Lexapro™) in a bottle marked clonazepam and vice versa. The only reason I didn’t notice immediately is that sometimes generic pills change shape if the pharmacy switches to a different manufacturer… but before I took two escitaloprams, I decided to check the “clonazepam” bottle first. Lo and behold, I was right. They’d given me mismatched bottles.

I wasn’t exactly hacked off about it, but I was concerned that it happened, and decided to go back into the pharmacy. You cannot imagine what an egregious mistake this is for non-medical people who wouldn’t necessarily grab on to the fact that the pills looked different and so was the dosage. If I’d taken two escitaloprams, it wouldn’t have killed me. But there are plenty of other drugs where it would’ve, and I didn’t want to get mad at anybody, but it was a responsibility/liability issue. I am the type person that would have taken them home and switched them out without saying anything in order not to have to interact again…. just not today. I was feeling angry about something else, and though I never let it show, it did give me enough courage to walk back in and talk to them about it.

Of course they were horrified, and should have been. Had I not known exactly what to look for, I cannot imagine what would have happened to my mood and behavior. It didn’t happen to me, but it very easily could have happened to someone else. Doubling your SSRI and halfing your benzo is two different things. Less clonazepam wouldn’t have hurt me, I just might have felt a little more anxiety than usual. More escitalopram would have made me euphoric at first and then disconnected from my emotions altogether after a week or so because my seratonin level would have gone through the roof.

Let me make it clear that this is an actionable offense, but I am not that person. My main concern was calling their attention to it, because what if it had been heart medication and narcotics? Depending on the dosage, the narcotics could have made autonomic breathing shut off, especially if the heart medication was halfed and the narcotics were doubled (again, depending on dosage). It’s not worth a court case, but it is worth writing about it to warn others to check and make sure that the medication is correct, as well as making sure everyone in the pharmacy loses blood in their faces, because they knew what the consequences would have been had I not been nice about it.

Here’s the easiest solution. Register for Epocrates, click on Drugs at the main menu, find your drug, and go to the “Pill pictures” link. That way, there can be no mistake. Or, if the pill looks different, just take it back to the pharmacy and ask if they’ve switched manufacturers or if the bottle isn’t labeled correctly. If the bottle is not labeled correctly, you will get the desired reaction without having to even raise your voice.

In short, be careful. No pharmacist is perfect.

Now that she has been struck down, she will become more powerful than we can possibly imagine. –Kristie Berthelotte

I feel like Carrie Fisher would laugh if I paraphrased her, so Carrie’s death hurt all three of my feelings.

Of course, realistically, it was a gut punch of enormous proportions. I don’t think that people who suffer from mental health issues will realize what an advocate they’ve lost until reality sets in, because right now we are all engulfed in shock. There’s been a disturbance in the force and we are reeling from it. The best we can do is take some of her incredible energy and put it into our own hearts, because that is the part of her which will live on. Because she was an actor, she is immortal.

My best guess is that every ticket for Rogue One today in the nation just sold out, and for those who aren’t going to the movies, the Star Wars series is queued up in binge-watch order. It makes so much sense. Watching her on screen is what keeps her alive, an idea that resonates with me because why do you think I write about Dana and Argo so much? If I do, they’re still with me. They’re still present. They’re still  three dimensional instead of flat and lifeless. They didn’t die, but our relationships did, which is sometimes harder than death because their lives are still going on, their beauty and humor still out there in the world, going on without me. There are solid reasons for it, but beyond logic I am still entitled to feelings about them…. wonderful and terrible… painful, honest, and real. In that way, they have gained immortality (at least, to me) as well.

Celebrity deaths are reminders of the deaths and immortalities that occur all around us, because we can’t say we knew them personally… and yet, sometimes they hurt that much. Star Wars and I are the same age, so Princess Leia has been a fixture in my life since I was born. Thanks to movie theaters and the Internet, she always will be.

I think it’s a classical music sort of day, listening to all the Requiems I love. Through music, I can let the people that their composers wished to be immortal live as well.

Goodnight, sweet Princess… letting everything I’ve lost so personally lie down in green pastures as well.