Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Love and a Road Trip

So, I'm trying to find something positive in the thought that we might have to sell the house. I know it's a possibilty, and it's killing me.

I grew up in an appartment, always the poor kid, and dreamed of someday owning a house. Now I own one, and we put all kinds of effort into it, and, as much as I don't like the suburbs, I love my house. I'm having a hard time coping with having to let it go.

So, if we're going to have to sell it, then I'm going to need something great, to get over it. So, I'm trying to plan for running away to the west coast since NoLose is going to be out there in the spring. I've always wanted to see the giant redwoods, the coast of BC, San Francisco, of course...

It's something to start planning. It would be a nice driving trip. There's some great scenery, and it would be so much fun.

I do love Spouse One. Planning the road trip, I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather go with. Interesting. As difficult as things have been this year, as hard as things have been, I guess this is the one for me.

Hm. Lots to think about.

Something to live for

So, I'm having trouble figuring out what to do with myself.

Given that I'm going to be on disability for the next while, and really can't manage a job, the part of my self esteem that's based on that has taken a substantial hit. I've always prided myself on doing a good job, working hard, and being a valuable part of a work team. It's something I'm really going to miss.

So there's that.

Then there's the part about being someone who takes care of a home. I have prided myself on taking care of Spouse One - Being the one who makes the house a home... I can't do those things anymore either, and it's making me feel like I'm not much use as a spouse. I used to clean the whole house, do all the laundry, do the gardening, cook big fancy meals, make lunches, and all the rest.

So that too.

Plus, with Spouse One going back to school, and me on disability we are going to be really fucking poor for the next few years. As in, I don't know that we can keep the house, what are we going to eat, how will we pay our bills, kind of poor.

That's a lot of stress. Combined with Spouse One's therapy over the treatment by theparental units, the stress that my mom is under at the moment, the residual grief over the sale of my grandparent's cottage, and the residual stress and feelings of betrayal over the abrupt dismissal from the family biz.

Long term it looks like things are going to be better for us, without the biz, since things are getting messier with the fam, and now we're out of it, but it's still a whole lot of energy, time and money to have put into things for no result. It's very disappointing.

Medically, things are still not going all that well, I'm extremely sensitive to all meds, and we're still trying to sort out what will work for me. At least I get sparkly crutches, which are supposed to come tomorrow. That's exciting. It should make a huge difference to being able to get around.

In the meantime I am hoarding my energy and doing my best to cope with being in pain all time. I hate being in pain, and am really hoping for some kind of resolution with the rheumatologist helping me out with a new scrip.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Something Funny

So, I've started watching this very odd Australian series called Summer Heights High. There's a little clip of the drama teacher Mr. G.here.

It's all played by the same fellow, and you can read about it on Wiki if you should want to, but it's odd in that, while I'm finding it hysterically funny, I'm struggling lately with trying to be a more socially aware person, and I'm not certain that I should be finding it funny.

It's the End of The World As We Know It...It's Gay Prom!

It never fails to amaze me that the fundamentalist Xtians, and terrified suburbanites have no problems vilifying their own children, and driving them ever closer to suicide through outraged articles like this one over the recent gay prom held in Chicago.

I was kicked out of my home as a lesbian, in the middle of an academic school year, by a mother, whose fundamentalist xtianity led her to believe that by permitting me to be homosexual she was exposing me and herself to sin, demons, and all sorts of other evil.

Fortunately for me, and for her, we have since reconciled, but it's been a rocky 15 years, and I don't think things will ever be quite the way they could have been without the addition of religious bigotry.

I don't doubt that there was some aspect of my as-yet unaknowledged sexuality behind my suicide attempt at 15 as well. I was at an Xtian boarding school, my granparents, the only people in the world to love me unconditionally were gone, my grandmother to alzheimers, and my grandfather having just died.

It was a few years before my best friend would come out to me that he was gay, and a few more before we would move out into our first appartment together.

But those moments, both at 15, and again at 20, it was amazing to me that just who I was was anathaema to the world. I was unacceptable. It took a long time to undo that, and I still struggle with it.

The difficult part of it is that little did anyone know I was so much more unacceptable than anyone knew: Yeah, I'm queer, but not just a "nice lesbian", I've been known to sleep with men, and I'm not necessarily averse to a penis. I'm not vanilla, and I'm into pain. My fantasies are not about consent, and they range from cop/runaway to Master/slave to everything in between. I'm mostly into male-dominant archetypes played by female-bodied butches, and I'm particularly into Daddy/girl play, and you can read whatever the hell you want to into that. See, I knew most of this when I was 13 stealing porno from the corner store and sneaking it out to the trash bins in the back parking lot when no one was looking, when the Penthouse forum had stories about ripping people's clothes off, and when I found the hardcore in the bathroom cabinet where I babysat for the people upstairs.

I struggled for so long feeling like god hated me, I really didn't need to have my family hate me too.

So yeah, I think it's great that there's a gay prom, and that there's Mister Leather as the security, and that there's a place to go and be yourself. I read that piece of right-wing hate, and I STILL got tears in my eyes, because, you know what? That's a place I could have gone at 15, and been me. Maybe I wouldn't have needed to OD on tylenols. Maybe I would have found a peer group, or some people to talk to, or maybe there would have been someone who could have talked to my Mom, and maybe I wouldn't have had to re-write all those essays, and have lost a year of university.

The photos in the article are cute. It looks like kids having fun. At a prom. Where no one is going to beat them up, or hate them. Feeling gorgeous and enjoying being kids. Isn't that the point after all?

More photos here