this and that (twos-11)

Insomnia
I'm struggling with, not daily but regular, insomnia. So strange for a narcoleptic to experience this. I am fairly sure this has to do with the change of my routine. While I spend less time sitting at my computer these days, I am also not juggling meetings and fielding phone calls. I think a lot of my working exhaustion came from that stress and at the end of each day, I was more tired.

This is me, hypothesizing. Being at peace doesn't take up so much energy! Even though I exercise the same amount and sit less, I am still more rested at the end of each retirement day than I ever was while working. I don't know. All I know is this lying in bed awake at midnight has got to stop.

Night before last, I gave up and got up. Had a drink (bourbon) and went back to bed. It worked but then I was too sluggish to get up on time in the morning.

 

I often wonder if is the bliss I have right now the result of working so long and hard that i was miserable? Is that how we get here? You would never agree to hitting your thumb with a hammer just to feel the absence of pain when you stopped. Anyway, I'm not interested in becoming physically or emotionally drained just so I can sleep at night, so I'd better find another solution that doesn't rely on drugs. Those are for recreation and fun.

Gilead

Just finished rereading The Handmaid's Tale. It hit me more powerfully this time than when I read it years ago. The storytelling is so good. And so fucking upsetting. I will start on The Testaments, Atwood's 2019 followup (of sorts) novel. Reading, if a book is compelling, makes my "real" life feel otherworldly for a little while. That is both appealing and unsettling.

 

Some might argue that the story is farfetched and not pertinent. In my lifetime, I have experienced the powerful coercion of religious/cultural dogma. (I have to add that religion seemed less like the goal and more like the incredible tool it is to create social order and obedience) And, like the story, the enforcers and indoctrinators were often women. Teaching you that to question, to feel, to want were all signs of weakness and moral decay. It is not fictional to me. For example, my habit/dress and fear of immodesty were embedded and then, self-perpetuating. It took little more than a nudge to keep me in line.

And those that objected? They were easily and maliciously accused of all sorts of lies. Their very presence was painted as a threat to decency and safety. We were too frightened by the debauched picture leaders painted to question the outrageous claims. Those voices were muffled, then silenced.

Project

I have transferred a simplified version of my grandchild's dad's restaurant logo to the apron front I am making for their mini-chef costume. I have collected a fair amount of embroidery floss over the years (oddly enough, my ex-husband liked to embroider and I ended up with a bunch of his floss). 

 

When we moved back in after the renovation, I took the time to organize the tangle. You know, color-coordinate and bundle–I am such a happy nerd. So, I looked in there for some white thread and there was none. How could I have all these colors and NO white? That's crazy. I am trying so hard to use what I have on hand but I had to order some white floss anyway.

Still tickled with how much I like how the home-dyed fabric looks. And I have been itching to do some embroidery for a while now. I think I'll outline the arms in a chain stitch, echoing the suckers that I can't include for time purposes (this IS a toddler costume and I'm already over the top with the details!), a straight or back stitch for the hat and satin stitch for the eyes. Then I'll sew the apron together and start on pants! Purchased some blue and white houndstooth for a simple pair of pull-on pants.

Writing

I continue to struggle/enjoy this writing challenge. I have allowed myself the luxury of not having to do 14 consecutive days. But I am pretty close to being done--today will be Day 11. It is so good to think harder about ideas, how to present them, what to leave out, etc.

 

Over the past few years, I have not read regularly. The last novel I read before Handmaid's Tale was Liar's Dictionary. It was wonderful. A combination of well-told story and word-lover vocabulary. What a wonderful book. And an inspiration to keep writing. Keep practicing.

Heat

So worried about all my Pacific Northwest people during this terrible heat wave! Especially my son and his wife. Their house is not well insulated and they are particularly stretched thin right now. But he checks in regularly and they have found temporary solutions to withstanding the inferno. Fucking climate change.

I know 100° weather is not the end of the world and most people living in comfortable situations can deal. But those without air conditioning or adequate water can really suffer. 115° weather on the other hand, is deadly. You really shouldn't be outside for any length of time and if you don't have air conditioning (like most people in PNW), you've got to find other ways to cool off. Today Portland will be a balmy 91°. The only thing they have that we don't right now are cool nights. Their day/night temperature spread during the heat wave was like 40° (110° – 70°) ours for much of the summer is closer to a 20° (95° – 75°) spread.

 

Today

My goals for today are pretty simple. Do some reading. Do some sewing. Plan a meal for our friends who are coming over on Saturday night. Trim my shrubbery (hair). The Saint has a work retreat (what an oxymoron) and dinner with her sister in the early evening, so I get to soak in the solitude.

We leave for Seattle/Portland one week from tomorrow for a 2-week visit. I am so, so looking forward to being there, a/c or no a/c.

foxholes and marriage (twos-10)

I had two disparate thoughts and decided to drop them here together.

fear and loathing in of nirvana

When my father died (and when Richard Hitchens died, as well) I was reminded of the expression, "there are no atheists in foxholes." I have since thought a great deal about this concept.

What a strange idea.

Basically, believers are convinced that fear, particularly the fear of death, will drive the most rational skeptic right into jesus' or buddha's or vishnu's or allah's arms. Yay, the non-believer is really just a believer in atheist's clothing! Vindication: we're all the same!

So. The ultimate test of believing is fear? That fear is the magnet and the glue that keeps you close to god(s)? Can you imagine applying this to anything else? Like, in order to "believe" in gravity, you must be dangled over a chasm, not use your intellect to understand it. Aha! You see, you believe! Or worse, the true test of love is the fear of an empty life without it. Cue generations of abused women. If your religion is true, why would fear be the reason you cling to it?

Would you want your lover to cling to you because they are afraid of the unknown life without you? Is that love? 

Fear of the unknown is a manipulative force for obedience. It is religion's and nationalism's blatant cudgel. First, they must tap into your fear, your deep, existential fear. Next, that fear must be whipped up to a frenzy of terror. Then, the man-made solution to this chaos and abyss is laid out–your path to safety is here: obey this holy book and the leaders of its doctrine and be convinced of a life free of fear now and in the hereafter.

It is fucking ingenious. Really. To control billions of people with trepidation and get their labor, their money and their obedience for free.

If you pull back the curtain, however, and see the men pulling the strings of the world, it's hard to go back to blind faith. At least it has been for me. Any movement (religious, political, psychological, nationalist, etc.) that demands me to put my reason on hold, adhere to a set of ideals, obey the hawker of those ideas and tremble in terror of what the world would look like outside the movement has no appeal to me.

Fuck your dogma and concocted doctrine. I'll take my chances with the unknown.

six years ago today

Today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. On this day, it was decided that denying same-sex couples the right to marry was unconstitutional.

Most queers knew that the decision was coming. This queer didn't believe that it would be made in our favor. Oh, things had improved, yes, but letting us marry? Didn't think it would happen. I was about to go into a team meeting. My team. And I was leading the meeting. An email came through, saying that the court had ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges. We were free to marry! I spent almost 2 years fighting for custody of my children 29 years earlier and survived. I am pretty tough to shake. But I couldn't stop my eyes from filling with tears and my heart from pounding. How had we gotten from that nightmare to the place where I could legally marry my partner? I went into my meeting overwhelmed by the idea.

Notice I didn't say "grateful." Although that feeling kept trying to come to the surface. I didn't want to be grateful for being treated like everyone else. Anymore than I wanted a Black person to feel grateful that they were no longer slaves. These are not equal issues–not by a long shot but the idea of being grateful to a country and culture for treating its citizens like human beings is similarly nauseating. I only felt grateful to all the queer people who had fought for this and felt very conscious that marriage equality was not LGBTQIA equality. This was just a piece of the solution.

But still, it was something to celebrate.

That day I started planning our 30th anniversary/legal wedding day for the following October.

I was previously not a fan of marriage. My first foray into (straight) marriage left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a revulsion of ever being anyone's "wife" again. I felt dissolved into another human being and secondary. Truly secondary. I balked at the invisible restraints. I hated losing my name. A problematic patriarchal inheritance to be sure but replacing that with yet another man's name rankled.

Eventually, I left that union and reclaimed my freedom and my name. I would never change my name again for anyone.

When I fell in love with the Saint, I was comforted in many ways that marriage was not on the table.

Then, the legal limbo of our relationship began to pop up all over the place. Home ownership. Her parental rights with my children. Fear of relatives who might easily and legally override our commitment to each other. Then, the worst: she got breast cancer and my rights in the hospital were suddenly, clearly not equal. I could not do for her what I might have done for my husband. I could not be guaranteed access. I could not legally step in on her behalf. We had to depend on the kindness of strangers in that setting. And they were kind and respectful but that was just our luck. I hated having our relationship hang in that balance.

So, the protections of legal marriage convinced me. And, yes, the ability to stand up in front of my family and friends and declare openly that we were together also held a power and romanticism that I will not deny.

We legally married five years ago this fall. I still consider us to have been married for 35 years--just because the nation had its collective head up its ass doesn't nullify the 30 years of living, working, paying taxes, raising children, etc. together. Our relationship already was and is an amazing thing to celebrate. And now, we have legal standing that makes it that much harder for anyone else to break.

Happy Marriage Equality Day, America.

distractions and delights (twos-09)

Well, this is embarrassing. I've stumbled for three days to write a single word, not to mention 1,000 of them. 

I do have something to show for it, however. I've been cooking:

Chicken/Veggie Stirfry

 

Grilled Pork/Roasted Vegetables:

Sweet Potato, Asparagus, Red Pepper

And making shit. I'm dying some cloth for my grandchild's Halloween costume:

Fun with chemistry at home

Had to stir the boiling dye for 45 minutes.
Felt like a Shakespearean witch. And liked it.

The long rinse.

 

The final denim colored cloth! 

They will be a tiny chef (squeeee!) for Halloween and the blue fabric will be made into an apron with the logo of their father's restaurant on the front.

 

Here's the coat (that I did not make--because I could NOT find a damn pattern so I had to buy this one). I will have to deconstruct and alter it because it's too big:

See also Tbsp prop which will look like a
regular wooden spoon in their little hands.

Here is the little chef's hat that I did make. There's a velcro closure in the back for adjusting to growing heads. I'm awash in the cuteness:

An inverted vase stands in for baby's noggin.

So here's the deal. Can I be a writer and still pursue all this fabulous fun making shit? I think so. But I can't do it all at the same time. Right now, the urge to do everything all the time is constant. I am hopping from one project to the next. But every project (or project segment) takes about four hours. If I have to cook and finish sewing, that's my day (more or less). If I write, I can only choose one other secondary activity before I'm done for the day. And all that is thrown into chaos when we have company or go visit friends.

I'm not really complaining--just adjusting my expectations. I will continue until I complete the 14-day, 1,000 word/day project because it has been hard and rewarding. Those days may not be consecutive but that's okay.

We've just returned from having lunch with one of my dearest friends. A member of our family of choice. He is housebound and chronically ill. A year ago, unexpectedly, he lost his wife--who was also his caretaker and lifelong companion. It is difficult to see him cope but he is coping. He is a priority in my life and now that I'm retired and fully vaccinated (and so is he), seeing him regularly is one of my goals. Which activity also needs at least 4 hours dedicated to it. He is very funny and dear. And I feel so fortunate to have him in our life.

The pandemic refocused many things. My love of solitude and making. How visiting with a select group of friends is one of the only reasons I will step away from my sanctuary and projects. The inner circle of my life is filled with so many fucking outstanding people.

 

Yesterday we had a friend (well, mostly my partner's friend--people love the Saint so much, they'll accept my friendship as part of the package) come by and stay for the day. It was delightful. There was day-drinking. WHO AM I? This is a new me. Bourbon? At lunchtime? Yes, I guess that's how it's going to be.

 

Tomorrow another of our besties (see above package deal) will come over for dinner. We are celebrating his new job, Marriage Equality Day and LGBTQIA Pride weekend. I will cook but I don't know what. He's a vegetarian which makes it easier because, you know, limiting the pool of choices gives me less to overthink. Jesus, I can overthink the shit out of things.

Oh, and in and among all this making, writing and socializing, I am committed to learning to enjoy the not-doing. Really stopping my frenetic approach to everything in order to lay fallow and regroup. Which is what I am going to do right now...wish me luck.

P.S. Remind me to post a pic of the little darling in their tiny chef's ensemble!

fat and the unintentional experiment (twos-08)

I don't talk much about being fat. Not here and not in real life. I wasted so much of my precious time from the age of 10 to 30 on this topic, I am loathe to give it another minute. But it's an important part of who I've become, so here goes.

If we took all the creative energy poured into conversations about dieting, exercise and corrective clothing, if we re-channeled all the self-loathing women heap on themselves into positive endeavors, if we redirected all the money and time spent on punishing ourselves for not being model thin into some other passion, we could conjure up a modern Renaissance. I'm not fucking exaggerating.

The cultural/social control over our bodies, self-images and confidence is second only to religion in it's ability to make us feel unworthy. I am talking about women but more and more I see men being squeezed into this impossible form as well. But I'm going to reference women because the control men have over our bodies is just one more manipulation heaped on the pile and we desperately need to recognize that.

I started dieting when I was 10 years old. 10. What is that, fourth grade? By the age of 10, I was so self-conscious and disgusted with my sweet and beautiful body, I put myself on a diet. Nobody told me I was fine the way I was. I was fully supported in this dieting endeavor by my parents. They agreed (in my mind) that my body was definitely not okay.

When I was little, my father called me "cherub." That was code for fat baby. Baby fat is almost cute until you're not a baby.

Age 10 was around the time my mom had to buy me clothes for pudgy kids. The clothing line was called Chubbette (thank you, marketing assholes) and my dad thought that would double as a funny nickname. He also armed my siblings with it (children can be so cruel to each other, myself included).

In middle school I had a biology teacher. I don't know what this guy's problem was but he liked to debate with me about Mormonism in front of the other students. I was, what 12? 13? A veritable theological scholar, right? Anyway, he also thought it would be hilarious to call me Chunky in front of the other kids. That stuck for quite a while.

Needless to say, the self-imposed dieting never stopped. Stupid, punishing diets that left me faint or nauseous. Family members watching what I ate and asking me "didn't you already have two cookies?" I developed a predictable shame/pleasure cycle about food. Food was disgusting/food was comforting. I went through a period where I tried to train myself to be bulimic but learned that this digestive system has an iron-clad one-way rule. For the life of me, I can NOT throw up. I have never spontaneously thrown up–not ever. If I am extremely sick I can occasionally make myself throw up but I practically have to shake hands with my epiglottis to do it.

For a time I liked to joke that there was a straight man out there crying about how cruel nature was to give  a lesbian (for all intents and purposes) no gag reflex. 

When I went through the custody battle, I gained 80 lbs in the first year. I went to the doctor and said, "Listen, I'm not proud. If I'd been downing a box of Oreos every night, at least I would have gotten something to show for it." But I hadn't changed my eating or anything. They chalked it up to stress. When the stress of that insane legal fight ended, of course the weight didn't reverse itself. I was up 100lbs.

But I was happier than I'd ever been. This woman had become a part of our family, she loved my kids and she loved me in ways that I could not believe. My size didn't matter. At all. It took me years to believe that she meant it. Suddenly, being obsessed about my size seemed like the fucking last thing I had time for. I was about to finish my degree, I had two young children to raise and a relationship to dedicate time to. I gave up dieting. I gave up talking about body size. I began to cull out the self-hate from how I spoke about myself. I aimed for zero fucks to give about how people saw me. I began to heal.

Society, naturally, reminded me at every turn that I was repulsive. My father claimed he was worried about my health (I was perfectly healthy: normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol, normal blood sugar, etc.) which I called bullshit on. Then, he said he was concerned that I wouldn't be able to find a job. What? Of course, I found jobs. I was smart and talented. By the end of my career, I'd be paid more than I'd ever had anticipated. Certainly more than he would have believed. One time he made one of his usual comments about my weight and lack of self-discipline, and I told him this wasn't about me. This was about him not liking that he had a fat daughter. That shut him up for a minute.

For many, many years I have just focused on being healthy. Exercise, sane healthy eating and watching portion sizes, especially over the past few years as the Saint and I aged. Then, during the pandemic, an unexpected thing happened: an unplanned dietary experiment. For the first time, the Saint and I ate the exact same things. We exercised the exact same amount. We worked at our desks for the same amount of time every day. It was a controlled experiment that I didn't even realize was happening for months. She is 6" taller than I am and while she carried extra weight, I still weighed more than she did. At the end of 9 months, she had dropped 40lbs. Me? I'd lost 13lbs. 

For the first time in my life, I realized that my body just doesn't shed weight like other people. And I'm not talking a slower metabolism–if I had dropped 25lbs to her 40lbs...then, sure, it's just the difference in our metabolism. But 13lbs? Something was wrong but not about how I was eating. The day I realized this, I had my first and only meal where I knew that there was nothing wrong with the way I ate. I had been blaming myself subconsciously for most of my life for my weight "problem." And for that one evening, I ate blamelessly. If I was wont to cry, I'd have wept.

I don't think they'll figure this out in my lifetime (all the standard tests have been run: thyroid, hormones, diabetes, etc.) and I don't care. I told my doctor and said I wasn't looking for her to solve the problem but she needed to understand that something was definitely wrong. But this is just the way my body is.

The increased consciousness of fatphobia damage (see Ady Bryant in Shrill) and numerous options in clothing for larger women have made all this a bit better. Gone are the fat clothes that employed large diagonal graphics or cabbage-patch-kids-like round collars over sack-dresses ablaze in flowers. But I don't think for a moment that being fat is acceptable here or in most countries.

Our culture's grip on our self-image is firm and unforgiving. I do wish women would stop it. Stop doing penance at the gym. Stop eating salads in public because you're afraid someone will come along if you happen to be eating dessert in public and say, "See? That's why you're fat." I wish women would stop apologizing for what they eat or worse, bragging about how little they ate that day. Just stop. It's a catastrophic suck on our energy. Our creativity. Our confidence. And we give it an outsized place in our lives.

Take up space. Spend your energy on things that delight you. Tell anyone who has an issue with your size to fuck off in every way.

our perfect they/them grandchild (twos-07)

When I was a kid the message that boys were tough and girls were delicate never sat right with me. Perhaps because I heard disparaging remarks about females (mostly from my father), I didn't want to be lumped in with that category. I rarely bucked these ideas outwardly but I was furious about them on the inside. And, of course, I was raised as a girl. While I was also comfortable with many of the girly things (and got reinforcement for them), I wanted a lot of the boy stuff, too. One or the other just wasn't enough. I'm old enough to remember when boys couldn't take "home ec" and girls weren't allowed to take "shop" in school. I would have loved shop. I'm old enough to remember when Legos were mostly for boys. I would have loved those, too.

When I legally married five years ago, I wore a red dress (natch) with a tuxedo tails jacket. I just don't feel "in my own skin" when I only dress femininely. Or only masculinely. At 62, I am just exploring what non-binary feels like. At the same time, I want to make it clear that my preference is not to be non-gendered. I want to be multi-gendered. I am still comfortable with she/her pronouns but I'm not comfortable being relegated to "femme" or "butch." Okay, I'm more comfortable with femme-appearing butch but I want the fluidity to shapeshift as often as I please. 

Aside: remember gender identity is not the same thing as sexual attraction. You can present with any gender permutation or no gender at all and be a homosexual, heterosexual, bi- pan-sexual or asexual. Two different characteristics.

Here are some of the clear gender messages I got as a young girl:

• Boys are better at math and science.
• Be smart but don't threaten males with your intelligence.
• Good girls don't take up too much space.
• Good girls don't swear.
• Good girls eat, sit and act like a lady.
• Girls are never going to be as strong, smart or successful as men.
• Girls are never going to be as good leaders as men are. 
• Girls should not let themselves get fat.
  
• Fat girls won't get dates.
• Fat girls won't get good jobs.
• Young women are responsible for the sexual response of their boyfriends.
• Young women are responsible for the moral behavior of the couple.
• Young women are not sexual. At least not as compare to males.
• Women should be teachers, nurses, mothers and secretaries.
• Women can be artists or musicians if their husbands can support them and allow it.
• Women don't deserve equal pay.
• Men are the head of the household.
• A male heir is always preferred. 
• Eve was a byproduct of Adam.
• Eve was responsible for Adam's "sin."
  
• Females are "given away" in marriage ceremonies.
• Females take their husband's name. They belong to him.
• Females should participate in sports in moderation.
• Females shouldn't climb trees unless they have shorts on.
• Females who allow themselves to participate in (and godsforbid, enjoy) sexual activity will be scorned socially.
• The intact hymen was a sacred symbol.
  
• Girls play with dolls. Boys play with trucks.
• Girls make pretty things. Boys break pretty things.
• Girls are delicate. Boys are tough.

I know that my male counterparts got many similarly skewed messages about not crying, not failing, acting like a bully, not liking girl things, etc.

I might have considered being an engineer or a surgeon but that would have been an uphill fight. Not that I don't love how my life turned out but the limitations were clear and loud.

When it came time to raise my own children I was hellbent on bucking this nonsense. Society is a massive, self-propelled machine and difficult to resist but I did whatever I could. I encouraged my son to be gentle, made sure he got a doll when my daughter was getting one. I encouraged my daughter to be fearless and pursue her dreams. Important note: Bold femaleness is much easier for our modern society to deal with than gentle masculinity. Anti-gentle-masculinity is rooted in misogyny. Just like homophobia.

I hoped that my behavior was ultimately a more powerful message than any teachings. I hoped that they saw that I was a strong, able woman. That I was in partnership with a strong, able woman. I hoped that they knew I would always be in their corner and take on anyone who would try to harm them. They witnessed us standing up to bullies, fighting for our rights as queers and protesting racism and misogyny. They grew up thinking that women could fix anything because we did. They never knew what it was like to have a mother who didn't love powertools, who didn't curse like a fucking sailor or who wasn't afraid to speak up.

But even with all that, I felt disappointed at how hard it was to keep gender expectations from saturating their young lives. It was everywhere and constant. I wanted more freedom for them but didn't know how to counteract all the boy/girl shit society threw at them from every corner.

Along comes my youngest–now nonbinary–child carrying our first grandchild. She/They (accept all pronouns) want to launch this experiment in child rearing that essentially removes gender from the world's perception of the child, which often becomes the child's perception of themselves. The baby will be raised in a gender-free environment until they decide what their unique gender expression will look like. It will be daunting but every powerful change is daunting. It will be hard. Gendered speech is goddamn hard to avoid. We have been steeped in this dichotomy, this binary. But it will be possible.

Now we have our beloved grandchild. 18-months old this week. The unrivaled apple of our eye. We are smitten and completely in love with this little human. And they are they. They are dressed in neutral or gender-balanced clothing. They are not treated as a china doll or a miniature weight lifter. They are allowed to experience the world with as little gender conforming language and expectations as possible. Living in the Netherlands makes that easier but not easy. There are pockets of traditional everywhere. However, this small human being is going about their life with as much gender neutrality as their parents can create.

This makes me so fucking happy. SO happy. Yes, it weirds out the family. Yes, my 83-year old mother is struggling. Yes, I slip and use gendered pronouns sometimes–even after 18 months of serious practice. But what a better world! What an unprecedented opportunity for approaching the world with fewer gender limitations. I try to imagine all the increased options available to them and it blows my mind.

I remember people asking me what was I going to do about religious training for my children since I am an atheist. I remember my father asking me what was I going to do about raising a son with another woman...what about his masculine training? When people ask about my child raising their child in a non-binary way, I say the same thing to them as I used to say: every generation is an experiment, so we're going to take the gamble that if you raise children without god(s), if you raise a son without a male counterpart or if you raise a child without the trappings of gender and just teach them to be good, kind, curious, adventurous, strong, thinking, compassionate members of the human family then they're going to be fucking amazing. And they are all fucking amazing.

life in the time of corona (twos-06)

I realize I haven't said much about one of the most historically significant events of our times: the 2020 pandemic which is transitioning out in this country right now. This is how the pandemic affected me.

In October 2019, we moved into our 468 sq ft garage apartment for the 13-month renovation that we had waited 25 years to begin. I had spent the better part of the previous three years purging, planning and preparing. And buying. Jesus I had to buy a ton of stuff. I found a company to do our drawings and then, picked a construction company to execute the plan. This was a simple and not so simple project. The footprint would not grow significantly (from 1600 sq ft to only 1690 sq ft) but our 100-yr old bungalow would need:

• to have the back porch (bedroom/bathroom) and laundry room ripped off and rebuilt
  
• to have the abestos shingles in the back removed by an abatement company
• to have them replaced with cement shingles
• the roof and attic rebuilt and extended
• all ceilings returned to their original 10 ft height
  
• the knob and tube electrical system completely replaced 
• a central air conditioning system installed (for the first time–hallelujah!) 
• all the plumbing ripped out and replaced
  
• a tankless water heater installed
• all the thin drywall ripped out and replaced with 1/2" board
  
• a new primary bathroom 
• a new primary bedroom
• the guest bathroom completely overhauled
  
• the kitchen completely redesigned
• a mudroom and laundry room built and
  
• ceramic tile installed in these rooms, the kitchen and both bathrooms. 
• new hardwood floors installed in the primary bedroom/closet and 
• hardwood floors refinished everywhere else. 
• 16 double hung windows replaced/installed (to meet code). 
• insulation added under the house, in the new areas and added to attic
  
• to be raised 16 inches (we live in a flood-prone city)
• the space under the house graded to prevent standing water
  
• the porch completely rebuilt, along with the pillars that held up the roof
• custom cabinets/storage created and installed by a master carpenter
• new side and back entrances created and respective porches built
• me to make 4,000 decisions, give or take.
  

We were incredibly grateful for the garage apartment, tiny as it was, because while we lost the rental income it provided, that amount would never have covered the cost of renting an apartment anywhere nearby. Besides, we only needed to be there in the evenings, right? Most weekends we'd be working outside on something house-related. Most days we'd be at our respective workplaces.

In December, we flew to the Netherlands to witness the birth of our one and only grandchild. It was amazing and joyous. We returned home the first week of January. And well, you know the rest. Two months later the world shut down. And there we were in this postage stamp apartment. Still grateful. Still employed. Still so grateful.

But that space was tight! It is a testament to how easy the Saint is to live with and how compatible we are. We were rarely much further than 6' away from each other. When we had simultaneous Zoom meetings, one of us moved to the only other room in the apartment with a door: the bathroom. The kitchen was impossible to cook in. And I was used to having what I thought was a totally shit tiny kitchen. We did work on the weekends in the garage. So many projects. I created a mosaic backsplash for the kitchen, we stripped miles of old molding to be repurposed. Ditto old doors. 

For the next six months, we maneuvered around the little space. Adjusting to the size and trouble-shooting the endless renovation questions and decisions. So many decisions. We continued to work remotely every weekday from our little desks and had countless video meetings. By December of 2020, the house was done and I gave notice that I was retiring. I was planning on retiring in March of 2021 but my leadership had been five years of increasing terrible; I was miserable and done. January 15, 2021 was my last day at work. Just over six months have elapsed and I haven't looked back. I do miss the people on my team but, honestly, I haven't thought about work at all.

After retiring I had three months to unpack the house and organize the spaces. This, constant reader, is not my super power. Historically these kinds of projects make me want to pull the covers over my head. I am usually overwhelmed and teary at the thought. But not this time. I looked at the mountains of bins and piles of boxes and figured out a strategy like a general mounting a tactical offensive. With an army of one. All previously purged categories needed to be re-purged. There were items organized that I pulled apart and reorganized. There were tons of things that went to charity, friends and in the trash. It was a massive challenge and I am not going to be modest–I climbed that fucking mountain, planted my flag and crowed.

At the end of the three months, my mom, two of my sisters and my sister-in-law came to visit. The house was clean, organized and brand-spanking new. My family was amazed. 

Note: Even though they knew I was a designer, my family had seen me live in this old house for 25 years without making major changes so they may have had their doubts about what I could do, which is fair enough. My mom and sisters are constantly making upgrades and changing their homes. And they are all lovely homes. I am possessed of a need to do things right or not do them at all. Can't explain why. When I finally accomplish something, I make sure I can get what I really want and not compromise too much. And I did. 

Of course, the fact that my spouse didn't care one iota about the design part meant that I got to do whatever I wanted. Holy shit, I'm spoiled.

Early in the year St Barbara had been vaccinated at work. I was vaccinated and "safe" about 10 days before my family arrived. Since then, the U.S. has begun to open. After 600,000 people died. It will be a long time before we'll be able to absorb the tragedy of this pandemic and the political upheaval that coincided/contributed to it.

My family is all vaccinated except for my youngest in the Netherlands, who is set to receive her first shot in July. That will be a wonderful day, when she is safe. Next month we travel to Portland to reunite with our son and his wife. In October, we fly to Amsterdam and see our youngest and our grandchild who we last saw at birth, 22 months earlier. These will be joyous reunions.

While the pandemic created a lot of stress, ultimately I was made for this kind of isolation. For the most part, I love, love, love being at home. Being able to work and play with the Saint every day and not having to go to social events I was not interested in was a huge relief. The best excuse not to socialize. While I got a little too isolated once or twice, mostly, I relished the privacy and time. And it segued into retirement like a dream. I have soaked and steeped in alone time. I have designed and planned and schemed new projects. I have sewed and knitted and written. I have cooked in this insanely wonderful kitchen. I have spent time with a small number of close friends.

Between the pandemic and retirement I have learned to protect my privacy. I have dropped obligations and made decisions about how I want to spend my precious time. My sense of bliss is unprecedented and pervasive.

sex education for the cloistered (twos-05)

She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elton
Loves daydreams and her boyfriend too.

(Tom Petty, Freefallin'; lyrics shamelessly adapted without permission)

When I was in middle school, pious little good-deed-doer that I was, I would periodically volunteer to go to the state or county home for the mentally retarded. We'd all load up in the school bus and spend a couple of hours playing with mostly Down-Syndrome and other mildly retarded children. I had a comfort level with the kids because I'd met some special-needs children at church.

On one of the last trips to the home, someone messed up. Instead of scheduling us with the little ones, they accidentally put us in with the teenage boys/young adult men group. In a very short time the school bus was filled up with freaked out 7th and 8th graders. I remember one of the mentally challenged boys hugged me; I wasn't scared but he hugged with the tenacity of a toddler and the strength of a man and didn't want to let go. We were no match. So the chaperones made an announcement that we should all get back in the bus and the attendants began to corral all the patients out of the room. I must have been sitting down because when one of the young men decided to drop his pants, I got an eye level shot at his half-erect penis.

Please remember, I grew up in a prudish, predominantly female household. I had only seen the non-erect penises of male infants whose diapers I changed while babysitting. This was a horse of a different...size. What I know now and didn't know then, was that this person had an unusually large cock. I had no frame of reference. So I could only conclude...wait for it...that his oversized schlong was a part of his deformity.

The next time I saw a penis in real life was on my wedding night.

I am not making any snide remarks about my ex-husband's endowment–not at all. I was relieved as hell that he was not in possession of such a sea monster. However, can you see how a little sex education would have gone a long way? Do you think I ever talked to anyone about the incident at the home? Do you think I ever hunted down pictures of male genitalia to see what I should expect? No, of course not.

What saved me from some of my naiveté and profound lack of experience was curiosity and education. An education initiated and conducted by myself. I read everything I could get my hands on (not illustrated, unfortunately) about (mostly conventional) sex before I married. My commitment to learning, formal and informal, is based on a love of exploration and the very practical need to know what the fuck I should expect from life.

Side note: I had to go in for a pre-marital vaginal exam (my first). I was 2,200 miles away from home and my mom (who is wonderful and might not have been much informational help to me but sure would have been a comfort). Anyway, the gynecologist was your average late middle-aged white man and he asked me if I wanted him to break my hymen so I wouldn't be in pain on my wedding night. Hmmm. Not a question Sunday school prepared me for. For sure, I didn't want to be in pain, so I said yes. Shit, that hurt. He went on to describe exercises I should do to keep my vagina flexible before the wedding.

I have thought about this incident many times since. I was grateful (?) that my wedding night was not painful. Yet I wondered if the doctor got off on this cultural power trip of deflowering the naive or if he'd just seen too many freaked out young brides after their wedding nights. I do not know. All I know was that I was an 18-yr old virgin with no mom or sister to talk through this and I was bleeding and sick to my stomach. I didn't even understand the traditional implications of not having my husband "take" my virginity. Which concept enrages me just thinking about it.

Sex education. I was desperate for it.

A year or so after getting married, my husband started bringing home Penthouse Forum. It was kind of a pre-Reddit information dump about sex and variations on the same. The other side of the looking glass. My education went into high gear.

So what did I learn? First of all, that there were possibilities for sex that I had never heard of nor imagined. I learned that I was indeed attracted to women. I began to view monogamy in a different way (although I wasn't quite ready for non-monogamy when my husband requested it sometime later). I read descriptions of the female orgasm that convinced me that I'd never had one. It was an enormous amount of taboo information. And I was still a fairly blank slate.

Son of side note: here is the sum total of my previous sexual education (and motherfuckers, explaining menstruation is not sex education). The day before I was to be married my mother handed me a douche bag and my father told me when I got to the hotel room on my wedding night, that I should lock the door and take a bath.

That's it.

Clearly, sex was complicated by my innate uncleanliness. Also, lock the door? What the fuck was that about? Suddenly I wasn't safe because my husband would become a rapist at the first opportunity? Fucking hell. What a message.

Anyhow, my education continued. Dave formally asked me for an open marriage. After crying privately about the accurate suspicion that open marriage was just his way of getting some on the side and keeping his wife at the same time (read: he didn't seem worried at all about losing me and he should have been), I agreed to open our marriage because I'm an idealist and committed to learning. Laugh if you will but that was why. What neither of us expected was that I would get so much more of the action. I was tripping.

Open marriage is a post unto itself. Suffice it to say, the experience changed me. Polyamory, which I still support, is very challenging. If your foundation is not rock solid, extra marital sex will crack it wide open. At some point, for other reasons made more complicated by this, I realized that I was miserable in the marriage, open or closed.

When I left him and decided to date women I was, oh gods forgive my adolescent punning, a fish out of water. Gay women took one look at me and my offspring and saw evidence of my previous congress with men and assumed (correctly) that I'd enjoyed it. They were not only not interested, they treated me like a hetero interloper/pariah. To them, then and now, I say: you should be so lucky. 

I finally met a woman who showed interest in me (despite my stint with semen) in a Leisure Learning class on learning to tune up your own car–jesuschrist the clichés just write themselves. She was lovely and awkward. We decided to skip the last class on air conditioning maintenance because she was going camping and her camping partner bailed on her. And I agreed to take their place.

Let's regroup for a minute: 

• First of all, if given the opportunity to choose between understanding your car's cooling system or getting intimate with a woman for the first time–I am here to testify that you will never miss learning to fix your own air conditioning. That your life will be much, much richer if you pay the auto guy and spend that precious time learning the mechanics of female anatomy.
  
• Secondly, you know I was out of my hormonal little mind to agree to go camping--an activity that I am 100% disinterested in. I am also fairly sure I'd have put on plaid flannel and Birkenstocks if that would have gotten me there faster. 
• Thirdly, this wasn't just camping. This was the goddamn Michigan Womyn's (sic) Music Festival. The notorious female-only, annual lesbian event in the Michigan woods. I had read the brochure so I had some idea of what I was getting into but even so, it ended up being jaw-dropping. When I say I prefer to jump headfirst into my passion, I am not shitting you.

It was a long drive and we camped one or two nights along the way. I am a very comfortable Alpha and the lack of specialized training did not deter me. At least I got to the festival with that box checked off. (Forgive me, I really can't help myself.)

There were 2,000 women. Which is 4,000 breasts, give or take. The remnants of my modest Mormon past dropped off like a decrepit cocoon and in no time, I was shirtless as a nymph. But still weirded out. I swear I was the only one there with toenail polish on and birth control pills in my bag. I was sure they could sniff out the imposter in me. In spite of my self-consciousness though, I could barely contain my cup-runneth-over glee. It was fucking glorious.

While I hope I never stop learning about pleasure and anatomy and all of that, I'm contented that book learning and field work have made my sex education graduation possible.

making (twos-04b)

When I was little, I read a story about some poor kids in a post-war/depression era setting. I remember very little of the story but this: they were trying to make a gift for someone's infant and had scavenged for materials. They found a discarded, worn vest and unraveled it for the wool. Then, knitted a sweater for the baby. Because the yarn was worn, there were thin parts on the sweater which they hid by embroidering flowers from other yarn scraps onto the fabric.

This is probably the most boring part of the story for most kids but for me--this was the beginning of a lifetime love affair with creativity. The idea that you could look around and take the castoffs of the world and spin them into something beautiful was mesmerizing.

Of course, this applies to almost anything you want to make. My favorite kind of cooking is looking at the odds and ends in the pantry and refrigerator and putting together a delicious meal. Some of the most wonderful dishes have been created by people who had little and figured out how to use whatever they had.

I am not poor anymore and I don't have to scavenge for materials but the idea of transformation still motivates me. The metamorphosis of a hunk of wood into a table or skeins of yarn into a sweater is magical.

My current project is making a Halloween costume for my sweet grandchild, Asteroid. Their parents have suggested that Asteroid be a tiny chef. I think this is a fantastic idea. I will deconstruct and resize a small (but not small enough) chef's coat and make the toque and apron. Imagining the little munchkin in their chef's outfit is my inspiration.

Another project is making window coverings. Partly because they are ridiculously expensive and partly because I love the challenge of making them myself. Roman curtains are a pain in the ass to make but tedious in a meditative way, if that makes sense. Once I get the process started, it will be repetitious and easy.

I also have a stained glass project that I will have to attack in the fall. It's too hot in the garage to work right now and there is no way to bring that glass shard mess into the house safely. This project will replace the three panels currently in our front door.

There's a shower curtain and bedspread on the list as well as figuring out a knitting project (shawl) that I got stuck on and haven't been able to figure out what went wrong with the pattern. I would love to do that without unraveling the entire thing and starting over. Which is what I usually end up doing.

The biggest challenge is not getting discouraged by visualizing what the final product will be. 

Having time to create things has been the driving force towards retirement for many years. It feels like a I'm a kid in a candy store--planning and making all these things. But it also feels like a put up or shut up kind of thing. Which is all about the fear of failure. Part of the lesson about accepting failure as one of the most powerful parts of the learning process is publishing these words. They are not polished or streamlined. They are a work in progress...

miscellanea (twos-04a)

Goddammit, writing 1,000/words a day is harder than I'd expected. Part of this retirement experiment is to find out if the things I thought I'd love and be good at turn out to be just an appealing idea of myself and not really me. We shall see.

I'm in the sleep-fighting ring and getting pummeled. Part of the reason is a Blue Alert that went off at 4-fucking-19 this morning. What is a blue alert? Well, it's a variation on the Amber Alert to help find abducted children. If you add too many more color alerts, we're going to need a cheat sheet. Blue alert is a warning about something happened to a cop OR warning that someone who injured a cop is on the loose. Confusing, eh? Well, whatever it is, it woke me up on a morning that I was worried about waking up on time (had to pick up the Saint at 6:30 am after her overnight sleep test) and that was all she wrote. No more sleep for me.

Aside: every time I read a Silver Alert on a highway sign, I whisper, "Go grandma, go!"

After picking her up from the sleep test, she wanted to go to breakfast. I am not a restaurant patron. I very rarely go out to eat. It's a combination of frugality, a passion for cooking and a love for delicious food. The only place open before 7am was a new Katz's Deli in the Heights. You know that saying, Pick two: fast, good and/or cheap? Well, Katz's is not standing out in any of those categories. Still, it was decent and we were hungry. When we walked in I realized I could never fully escape my past. The Sinatra song playing was the aural component of damn good marketing. A New York deli with Sinatra crooning over the sound system? It was perfect. As much as I want to ignore it, I see/hear/smell/taste branding everywhere.

I want to wax poetic about daydreaming. Laud the power of letting my type A personality go to seed. Sing the praises of the blank page and the creative potential in mind drifting. But today, daydreaming is just the slippery slope to unconsciousness and I can't.

Speaking of work shit I'd like to forget, I was happily chatting with my old Art Director (old meaning past, not ancient). Then, he had to get off the phone for a meeting he'd forgotten and goddammit, I remember how much I will NEVER miss work meetings. Feigning interest in someone's insecure ramblings took years off my life and it brings me joy to never have to restrain my eye-roll again. Ever.

I also wanted to ramble on a bit about sex. You know, why it's so amazing. But I feel I will never do justice to such a delightful subject in my current state of sluggishness. What a shame. Hopefully, I'll be back on this subject before too long. I spent way to much of my energy as a young girl clamping down any and all sexual urges only to find out like the child of an all-natural, granola-head parent that they were all wrong about evils of ice cream. All wrong.

But, I am sad to say, I will only reach 500 words today, because I decided to get stoned and now I'm useless.

hunger and courage (twos-03)

In one of my recent posts I mentioned that saving the awful paperwork from the legal battle for custody of my children was a way of documenting my bravery. I was listening to a conversation between Rebecca Solnit and Sonara Jha last week (virtual events feel like sneaking into someone's living room to hear them chat) and they talked about sexual abuse and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Well, that makes total sense, right? Being sexually assaulted, like any experience with violence, would create a terrible psychological backlash. However. When soldiers talk about their war experiences, people listen with hushed reverence. Their courage is lauded. They are given medals for their actions. And now, with more mental health awareness, they are treated for their wounds, mental and physical.

When woman (mostly) have PTSD from sexual assault, they are expected to keep their war stories silent. No one wants to hear the gory details. No one wants the indelicate images shared.

Great comedians have always peppered their humor with serious cultural commentary. George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Dave Chappelle, etc. They have been sometimes been criticized but often embraced and, in general, respected. When Hannah Gadsby performed her show Nannette, I was surprised/not surprised at the anger of many men and women because she not only refused to be predictably funny, she broke the code of talking openly about the boys/men who sexually assaulted her and what it did to her. She was not polite. She did not use euphemisms. She gave no fucks if it made the audience uncomfortable. In fact, she seemed to want the audience to be uncomfortable. She wasn't interested in making men feel safe. 

She is a warrior, survivor, broken human on the mend. She deserves a goddamn medal.

I know so many women, too many women, who have survived the epidemic of sexual assault. They are powerful and I wish to all the mythical gods that their power had been built on a different foundation. Most of them function magnificently. They mother, they lead, they build and they gather others together. It is a fucking miracle and they deserve medals and hushed reverence for their strength. For their perseverance. For resisting the well-earned urge to burn it all down.

Me too. Those two words started a heartbreaking roll call across the country. Me too. My own experience at the age of 11 was short and terrifying. I spent years minimizing it because I wasn't raped. But, like Roxane Gay talked about in her brilliant book, Hunger, my life cleaved in two that day. Before I was molested and after. I never even recognized the damage done by the Mormon church leaders some years later as additional sexual abuse until the #MeToo movement. I just assumed it was what all women went through and had to bear–and please bear it silently, sister. Childhood innocence ended that day in a crowded line for hot dogs at Shea Stadium when a strange man slide his hand between my legs and I froze for what seemed like an eternity before I bolted away. I was filled with shame. I was wearing a pretty peasant top with my new training bra and some red and white checked polyester pants. Everything on me felt complicit and tainted.

When I cried loud enough in the bathroom late that night to make my mom come find out what was wrong, I told her. She asked me questions. They were probably innocent enough but each question seemed to imply my responsibility in the sordid act. I remember thinking, with a child's fierceness, no man will ever touch me again. I remember going back to bed red-eyed and sniffly. I remember crawling into my big sister's bed and feeling safer but not safe. I remember the subject never came up again. Ever. It took 10 years before I could speak of that day again. But not with my family or friends. Just to a therapist who didn't know me.

Something breaks when a woman or girl is violated. Something you can't un-break.

I finished Roxane Gay's book yesterday. It is painful and articulate and raw. She is brilliant--really, like something in a jewelry display that shines almost too brightly. I would have an unabashed crush on her if she wasn't so close to my childrens' ages. Her wife (Debbie Millman) is also very smart and full of bright shiny ideas. A queer dynamic duo those two. The thing about Hunger that impressed me most was that understanding the flawed, damaging misogyny behind our culture's obsession with the thin and white and pure does not prevent us for wanting it anyway. Even when it's not possible (which it's not for 85% of the population). I appreciate that contradiction.

She's another one--give her a fucking bronze star.

I was taught that bravery and courage were male traits. That women were to be protected and grateful. Women were only brave when men were absent but they shouldn't have to be. Maybe it was some primal form of feminism that made me reject the idea that women weren't as tough as men. Or maybe I was just a deeply stubborn child. I silently taught myself to control my fear by walking around the spooky cellar alone in the dark. I watched my father's bullying behavior with seemingly compliant composure and steeled myself for the day that I would stand up to him. I trained my fight response and smothered my flight response. The bravest things I ever did not involve physical confrontation (well, not most of them) but the ability to look your bully in the face and say, hit me again. To find a well of inner calmness and intellectually battle powerful people with my composure intact. I didn't always win but I always felt powerful.

To all the women who have shared their nightmare stories with me and still manage to face the world with grace and rage and love and defiance, I salute you. You inspire me. I wish I could heal the damaged child in each of you. You are my heroes.

el día que me desperté (twos-02)

This is a story about narcolepsy.

Long before my family dove head-first into Mormonism, the banner of Puritan Industry had been firmly planted in my little cranium. My mother was tire-less. Every moment of her waking day was spent on the domestic treadmill of perfection. She cleaned and shopped and tidied and cooked and scrubbed and laundered and cleaned. Deargods, that woman could/can clean. Eventually she worked full-time and just added that to endless lists of things that had to be done and done well. When all was said and done, she accomplished this (without napping!) while raising five children and tending to my demanding father, who worked grueling shifts as a policeman, went to night school, did yard work and never-ending house repairs.

I was born 21 months after my big sister and 18 months before my little sister. I was a round, happy baby by all reports. My baby book descriptions (sparsely filled-in as the second child but still more complete than the younger kids got) captured my essence with eerie accuracy: Good eater, healthy bowel movements, sleeps well. I was not a physically adventurous creature. My mother's cousin said that I had no interest in crawling until they put my great grandfather's fireman's hat out of reach. His red fire hat. Another odd glimpse into my not-quite-formed personality: the color red was and is intrinsically compelling to me.

I didn't walk until I was 15 months old. I suppose this isn't all that unusual but I hadn't heard about late walking when I was a young mother. If my children hadn't walked by 13 months, I'd have taken them to the pediatrician. Yet, not walking made total sense to me. Why exert effort if everything important is supplied? By the way, this has nothing to do with narcolepsy (which doesn't present until teen or young adult years), it's just establishing that I was never very physically energetic.

But my brain. Ach. My brain whirled around like a gymnast on amphetamines.

I was a bookish kid. A maker kid. A smart kid. A daydreaming kid. A kid that did not want to play outside. But my mom wasn't going to raise some naked-mole-rat-looking child and pushed me outside to play. Even in the fucking snow. My love for overcast days is a direct result of knowing that if there was a threat of rain, I was allowed to stay inside, writing and building and dreaming. As a grown woman, I would proudly assume the Superman stance and declare, "I am INDOOR GIRL!"

During my teenage years I began to crave sleep. Not all the time but whenever I stopped studying or hanging with friends or doing chores. My senior year of high school was the first time I ever had my own room. I don't remember ever having to be scolded to go to bed.

At 17, I left home for college. It was during college that narcolepsy really set in. I married Dave at the end of my freshman year (fucking religion and it's no-fucking rules). I took a few last classes after financial support from my parents was terminated because I was now independent or something (and there were three kids behind me in the tuition line). One was a 7:00 am class taught by one of Dave's professors. Now, early morning classes were always better for me because afternoons and evenings were my sleepiest times. It was a better time but not sleep-free. The professor cornered my husband and asked him if I slept through all my classes, or just his? I was so damned embarrassed.

Later on, while I finished my BFA, an art history professor (that I loved) forgot that I told him about my problem and during a post-lunch art history slide presentation, stopped the class to wake me and suggest I drop out because I slept through his lectures anyway. I.was.mortified. I penned him a quick reminder of the situation, walked out of the class and worked my ass off to get an A in that course.

Pregnant at 19, my increased struggle with sleepiness could be blamed on pregnancy. After my first was born, it could be blamed on taking care of an infant. A creeping desperation for sleep began to overshadow my life but I was so, so ashamed. I didn't tell anyone until I was really afraid that I wouldn't be able to take care of my baby or achieve any of my goals. I finally went to a doctor who listened to my concerns and promptly suggested I was a bored housewife and maybe I needed a hobby. Motherfucker. I was humiliated. It was a clear sign that I was truly lazy and undisciplined. The cardinal sins of my upbringing.

Our house was carpeted in Fisher-Price and Duplo toys. I managed to bathe the baby and most days, clean the dishes but precious little else got done. In addition to the undiagnosed narcolepsy, I had a cleaning perfection standard that I was never going to even get close to, so my motivation flat-lined. The hillock of clean, unfolded laundry was moved from the bed to floor each night. Dave did more than his share of cooking and cleaning and I ground my self-image deeper into the dirt.

I swear my precocious son's first words were "Wake up, Mommy!" yelled with his plump little hands cupped around my ear. My second child was born 3 days after my 23rd birthday. We had moved across the country when the baby was 6 months old. I hated unpacking. If regular life was hella difficult, unpacking the house and getting everything in order was impossible. One day, in a depressing, light-starved apartment I awoke sitting up from an unintended nap for the 5th time that morning and realized I didn't know where my toddler was. I found him asleep between the boxes or perhaps, he had ingested poison and collapsed between the boxes, I didn't know.

It was terrifying.

The next week, I found a random internal medicine doctor and made an appointment. Armed with a clipboard of notes and not allowing the doctor to say a damn thing, I ran through the litany of my experience, willing him to believe. He asked whether I was depressed and I said, how do I know? Am I sleepy because I'm depressed or am I depressed because I can't stay awake? I told him I didn't think so. I loved having my two children and I felt that my marriage was healthy (I was wrong but at the time, it seemed true). After telling the doctor:

• I lived to sleep.
• Halfway through grocery shopping with my husband and kids, I would almost weep to go sit in the car with the baby until he finished.
• Everything was a Sisyphean task. Everything. How would I ever finish my degree?
• I would fall asleep sitting up constantly. On the subway. On my couch.
  
• I fell asleep at stop lights.
• I could sleep 10 hours and be ready for a nap 2 hours after waking. My husband had to wake me from that nap after 3 hours because he was concerned (and probably tired of taking care of the kids).
• As I walked around, I fantasized about curling up on the floor everywhere. That low-pile industrial carpeting beckoned me to lie down.
• Sleep had become my savior and my ball-and-chain.

He simply said, I think you have narcolepsy.

Inwardly, I scoffed. For christsake, I didn't have narcolepsy! Narcolepsy was a comedian's joke. It was slumping over mid-conversation. It was stupid poodles running full out and then collapsing for a nap. The doctor said, if you had the more extreme symptoms of narcolepsy, you would have been easily diagnosed earlier. The sleep disorder, like most, is on a spectrum. I didn't collapse from cataplexy. I didn't have sleep paralysis. I didn't fall over mid-sentence. I was just debilitatingly sleepy.

I was skeptical but it was the first time anyone had ever believed me. I wept the entire drive home.

39 years ago today, the door to the rest of my life was flung open because I insisted that someone believe me.

One of the great ironies of my life was that the only legal drug available to me, coffee, was forbidden by my church. Still nursing my baby and not ready to wean her, real drugs were not an option. So I had coffee for the first time. It was stunning what caffeine, thrown into a virgin bloodstream, would do. My gastric system went into an uproar. But I was awake. I stopped near-strangers in my apartment complex to gush that it was 1pm and I hadn't napped all day. It was fucking miraculous.

Narcolepsy is an umbrella term to describe excessive daytime sleepiness. Because narcolepsy is a diagnosis based on eliminating other issues, it is often challenged. I wish just one of those neurologists could feel the terror of possibly having that diagnosis shot down and returning to that under-water state of inertia.

I believe my diagnosis is finally safe. And the medications I take are safe (enough) and effective. I don't think about having narcolepsy most days. Raising my children, getting my degree, divorce, custody battle and career success would not have been possible. I would like to think that my relationship with The Saint (my spouse and the most patient woman on the planet) would have been possible but not being alert makes many relationship problems thornier and makes simple communication harder. So, being awake also gave me back love and romance, too.

I have narcolepsy and because of the miracle of modern medicine, I have lived a rich life. My current neurologist says a narcolepsy diagnosis usually take 20 years. I credit my stubbornness and hunger for a better life with my early diagnosis. I love being awake and alert. I also still love drifting off to sleep.

1,000 words of summer (twos-01)

Roxane Gay, in her newsletter The Audacious Round Up, mentioned the writer, Jami Attenberg, who started this #1000wordsofsummer project. This year's project ends today so, of course, I'm going to start today. 1,000 words/day for 14 days. A kick start for something I've been wanting to do and because I have this fundamental belief that I ought to cobble my own shoes and be my own coach (and since that is ridiculous) I say thank you Roxane Gay for helping to motivate me.

So much has happened since I posted here regularly that I am tempted to do the gargantuan recap. But I won't. Except for this: I now have a grandchild and I retired 6 months ago. 

The grandchild, named Asteroid, has transformed me into the utter cliché of grandmotherhood. It is good and right. They live in the Netherlands, which makes exercising that cliché a tad bit challenging (particularly since they were born three months before the pandemic). The child's name is a testament to the concept that 1) I don't get a vote in what name is chosen for my grandchild and 2) any name that symbolizes your beloved offspring's offspring will become magical to you. Please note the use of the gender neutral pronouns. Asteroid will get to decide if and what gender they prefer. Again, I don't get a vote but I support diminishing gender expectations wholeheartedly.

The retirement has been an extraordinary, all-that-I-hoped for explosion of happiness. I was born for this. I am obnoxiously splashing around in my joie de vivre.

The prevailing theme of my life is that I am a maker. Of things. Fiber. Wood. Metal. Words. Food. This is what I want to do, all of the time. If you ask me what I am excited about, I will gush over the shortbread dough waiting to be made into checkerboard cookies. I will wax effusive over preparing to make Asteroid's first Halloween costume (a tiny chef--A TINY CHEF! How could that not be amazing and fun?). I will furrow my brow in seriousness while I talk about filling the natural pecan wood crevices in my dining room table with green/blue resin. I will go on enthusiastically about making sun-blocking roman shades for the blindingly sunny windows in my house. I will bore you. I will tell you as fast as I can because I want to spare you as much boredom as possible. But I am irrepressible.

Since retiring my outer world has shrunk and my inner world has expanded. Exploded may be more accurate. So much blissful time to think and dream and plot my next move. I grew up in a small house that, at one point, had 7 humans sharing one small bathroom. I shared a room with a sibling for 16 of my 17 years there. I was a child that craved solitude like nourishment. It never happened. I left for college. Spent one year in a dorm room with a friend from church that I didn't really know very well. I was married at the end of my freshman year because good Mormon girls don't fuck before marriage. Good Mormon girls don't call it fucking. Good Mormon girls don't talk about "it" at all. Married at 18, pregnant by 19. Divorced by 25. To say that I never had time to myself is an understatement.

I am nothing if not patient (with my goals, I mean. In general, I am not very patient with myself or others). At 62, I finally satiated this lifelong need for space and time.

Godhelp anyone who tries to part me from it.

In addition to retiring, we just completed a 13-month (really, a 25-years in the making) renovation of our 101-year old bungalow. So much planning and decision-making and physical work. Then, I spent the first four months of retirement unpacking, re-purging (I really thought I had done a good job pre-renovation. I was wrong.) and organizing everything. It was a test of dueling with perfection and not getting so overwhelmed by the forest of bins that I gave up. I am not an outdoorsy, hiking sort of person. This was my Mt. Everest and I was my own Sherpa.

One of the many categories of the great purge of '21 was sifting through 20 30 40 years of writing. There was terrible poetry, of course. But there were also some gems that I saved from the shred pile. Of all this stuff, I was amused to learn that my habit of keeping lists of words has followed me all of my life. Lists of interesting rhymes. Lists of words to describe unique things. Lists of homonyms. Lists of terrible corporate jargon documented during tedious work meetings.

The other rediscovery was the endless paperwork from a custody battle that my ex-husband waged for our two children. A custody battle that leveraged my being poor and queer with his being a monied white man. It was terrible and terrifying. Ultimately, it was a war of attrition and my heels were dug in so deep, he finally gave up. The documentation of all this seemed a mountain of awful. But I ended up keeping more of it than I originally thought healthy. Why? Because it was not only the hardest thing I'd ever experienced but it was the bravest I'd ever been. It was a testament to my will and my courage and I didn't want to erase the history of such triumph.

I spent last week in Cancún with a dear friend (sorry I must skip this story to finish another). When I got there I felt like my Spanish was about toddler level and that I would not make much headway with the language in the short time I'd be there. But by the end of the 5 days I managed a simple conversation, woven together by horrendous grammar, with the van driver on my way to the airport. This may seem disconnected but it's not. Like my Spanish, I trust that through practice, my writing will also get easier and better. 

Here's to my first 1,000 words. I am loquacious so it surprised me that this was harder than I'd expected. But being able to expound on a subject is surprisingly freeing. Except that I fear I will meander the reader right off the page, so thank you for making it this far.