Some good stuff

Here are some good things that have brightened my days lately.

1) The Kid is moving back to the Pacific Northwest!  Yes, it's true!  Finally!  Zoe's man got a job at that big computer outfit near Seattle and they are headed this way.  I am so effing happy about that.  There are lots of details to work out, of course, but the thought of having her just three hours away is fantastic.

2) T got a job!  A real 40 hour a week job!  True, it's a 6 month temp but they told her at the interview that they want to make it permanent.  Now we just have to set an intention that they find the funding and hire her permanently.  And the best part?  It's doing maintenance at the Zoo!  She started this week and is already thrilled with it.  I told her that if she gets on permanent she'll have to stay for 20 years so that she will have a retirement.  She is so happy!

3) My two best friends are coming for a long weekend, starting tomorrow!  Lisa had been planning on coming for months, she wanted to see my mum one last time but this was the soonest she could get away.  Of course, it's too late for that but she is coming anyway to cheer me up and just hang out.  Then, last week, she told T that she was planning a surprise and bringing my other bestie along for the weekend too!  I'm not supposed to know but T told me because it's hard to hide details like getting out the air mattress and planning for more than one house guest.  I'm sworn to secrecy and I will be the most surprised person ever when KA shows up!  I'm just so happy to have friends who care so much about me.

I'm grateful.  Very, very grateful.  In the midst of my sorrow, here are reasons for gratitude.  Thank you, Universe.  I haven't felt happy for a long while, and here are three outstanding reasons.

xoxoxox

I'm still here!

Dear Blog Friends,

I’ve been neglecting you.  I’m sorry!  It’s not that I don’t think of you, I do, and frequently.  It’s just that for the past month or so everything that came out of these fingertips was so negative that I grew weary with myself.  I chose not to bore you with my whining.  And, what did that leave me with?  Right.  Not a lot.  I’m working on that.  Working on having a better attitude, on finding some good in what I do, on seeing that damned glass as half full (or completely full!), you know, trying to put a little positive energy into my life.  So, I’ll keep working on that, but in the meantime I do have something fun to report.

On Thursday night my daughter arrives in town.  Yay!  That’s always good.  On Friday at noon we are heading out for an adventure.  Yay!

Me, T, Zoe and Angela are going on a weekend trip to Forks, Washington.  It’s the home of the vampires from the Twilight books and movies.  Personally, I don’t give a hoot about the damn books or movies, but our girls are excited about it and it’s just fun to get away.  We are going to stop at all of the marked destinations and take plenty of photographs.  We will be staying in La Push, home of the werewolves, mostly because the hotels (both of them) in Forks didn’t look all that great.  Also, this way we get a beach weekend out of the trip too!  Bonus!

Of course, a beach weekend is wonderful but we are just the tiniest bit worried about more tsunami action and radioactive fallout.  But, hell, what’s the sense in worrying?  We’ll be breathing the fallout regardless and if there’s another tsunami, well, at least we’ll be in the front row.  All kidding aside, I think it’s safe.  (And, please don't think I am being insensitive about Japan.  I have been in touch with my Japanese friends and have sent the most needed thing - money.)

So, next week I may even be able to post some pictures of us having fun.  About time!

NFL Playoffs

SEAHAWKS v SAINTS!


Look for us near the end zone, cuz we are going to the game!!!


WOO HOO!!!!

Seasonal Affective Disorder

It’s not just the winter blues, it’s the winter blues on steroids.  It’s the winter blues that have been working out and pumping iron and are coming after you.  It’s the winter blues that take no prisoners.

Yes, I suffer from this disorder.  It’s prevalent in the Pacific Northwest and in other places that are either very cloudy or very far north.  Lots of research has been done in places like Norway.  Go figure.

One of the therapies for SAD is the use of light.  There are two main directions you can go with light therapy.  One is the full spectrum light box that you sit in front of for a period of time every morning.  Many people use this while having their morning coffee and reading the paper (or checking their Faceboob page).  The other method is the dawn simulator lamp.  I use both.

My wonderful, sympathetic, loving partner got me both types of lights for Christmas.  What perfect gifts!  We had two Christmas’ this year; the first with my daughter early in the month and then again with T’s family on the actual date.  T gave me the light box on the first occasion and the dawn simulator lamp on the second.

I used the light box for a couple of weeks and while I couldn’t feel a dramatic difference I think it might have helped.  The odds were not in favor of success, though.  My kid had made a short visit and while it is always fantastic to spend time with her, the saying goodbye part leaves me down in the dumps for awhile.  I’m still using the light every morning because… why not?  Anything that will help seems like a good idea.

The dawn simulator lamp is the most wonderful, brilliant, inspired creation in the history of lamps!  In the history of getting up early!  I LOVE IT.  For reals.  I have been using it for two weeks and can give it a solid recommendation.  It has already had a noticeable and positive effect on my mood.

Here’s how it works: you set the alarm for the time you want to get up – in my case 4:45 am.  A half hour before that time the lamp turns on and starts gradually getting brighter and brighter.  When it gets to the alarm time, it is at full brightness and it also makes sound.  Mine is set to chirping birds!  You can choose a buzzer or the radio as well, but the birds are charming.  I begin to wake up about 10 or 15 minutes into the cycle but don’t feel pressured to jump out of bed.  By the time the lamp is at full brightness I feel ready to get up, although sometimes I’ll lie there for a few minutes listening to the chirpy birds (who, by the way, get louder and louder).

The only downside to the miraculous lamp is if you have a bedmate who gets up after you and can’t sleep through it.  Fortunately for me, T sleeps through most things and even if the light bothered her she wouldn’t want me to stop using it.  When I get up, I prop up a couple of pillows to shield her face from the light.  The first couple of times I turned the lamp off when I got up, but that just made the darkness feel more oppressive. Now I leave it on while I take my shower and only turn it off after I am dressed and ready to go downstairs.

I have definitely noticed an improvement in my depression and I feel confident in saying that it is a direct result of the dawn simulator lamp.  I should have bought one years ago, but I have one now.  If you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, I highly recommend that you get one of these.  Best money spent on mental health ever!

Good Things

Good thing number one: the dishwasher is in and working! Yay, Yay, Yay!!! My quality time with the dishes will shrink back down to a reasonable level.

I spent the extra money for a dishwasher that can take stemware in the upper or lower racks. Very much worth the price, in my view. We drink a lot of mimosas ~ or, in my case, just plain champagne. Well, right now it’s champagne with either raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries since they are all in season. We don’t generally drink out of flutes unless we have company. We have some glasses that are more like pilsner glasses than flutes ~ very tall and thin. They don’t hold much more than say, a short tumbler, but they are just the right shape for mimosas. But, they didn’t fit well in the old dishwasher so I am pretty happy about that upgrade.

Good thing number two: the hot tub is in! Ok, it’s in place and wired. T’s uncle is an electrician and came over yesterday to put in a new circuit, new GFI box, and wire it up. T finished the deck that it sits on and only has a little bit of cross-bracing to do before we fill it up and turn it on. We’re doing that after work today! I don’t know how long it will take to heat up; I’m guessing several hours. So, we may or may not be able to sit in it tonight. I sure hope so!!! The weather has been cool and either cloudy or rainy for the last few days. So, if the tub doesn’t warm up enough before bedtime it’ll have to be tomorrow.

The sunroom isn’t built yet, so it looks like a deck with a hot tub sitting right outside our living room. It does actually look a little odd. And, I suppose it will look odd to our neighbors for awhile. We live in one of those close in neighborhoods where we can generally see into each other’s yards but are mostly too polite to do so. We will, however, have to wear bathing suits until the room is built and there are blinds on the windows. But, one thing at a time, and right now it’s the tub being hooked up. Yay!

Think of me~ mimosa in hand, warm bubbly water, playing footsie with my girl… oh, yeah!

What a week!

My big-ass birthday party was great fun. Had just over 50 friends there. I would have enjoyed twice that many but it was sufficient. I got to chat with most and (I think) greeted everyone. T survived. She doesn’t like big parties but she rose to the occasion. Several of her friends came, which was nice. A friend of mine from New Mexico came up on the Friday and went home on the Monday ~ honestly, house guests are harder on my girlfriend than big parties. She has to do a lot of accommodating to be with me.

I had arranged ahead of time to take the following week off work. I have a big project to take care of and this was my chance to get a solid chunk of it done. It’s an odious task, really. I’ve been putting it off because I felt overwhelmed by it. Cleaning The Basement.

I bought the house in 1994. My daughter and I have a moderate pack rat tendency ~ we are not hoarders, and are in fact capable of throwing out old and broken stuff. Our problem is that we are very sentimental. I probably had every piece of art she ever created. And all of the cutest kid clothes that she wore. She wanted to keep every stuffed animal she ever received. And the toys and games, and, and, and…

Add to this the coincidence that when we moved into our house, my parents were moving out of theirs and one of my brothers had been storing stuff at their house. So, we had boxes of stuff from the parents, the brother, AND the roommate who was moving in with us. Some of the stuff from my parents house had actually belonged to my paternal grandmother and had been schlepped around for a decade or so. What a mess!

The biggest obstacle for me was an old couch that the roommate had left behind. When she moved in it went directly to the basement and there it stayed. It is incredibly heavy! And ugly! And long, and curved, and just plain difficult. Besides the couch, there were two large area rugs and their pads that didn’t survive house training the dog. Yes, they had been sitting down there for years! It’s shameful and embarrassing but what can I say? I’ve been busy! So, getting the couch, the rugs and pads, an old foam camping mattress, the world’s largest stuffed dinosaur (I kid you not, this thing was about 8 ft long), and various odds and ends out of the basement, into the truck, and off to the dump was my goal for Monday. I had two people to help and it nearly wasn’t enough muscle power to get it done. But, we did. I felt so relieved ~ that couch had been a plug and once it was pulled, things started flowing.

Now, when I say ‘flowing’, I mean it literally. On Tuesday, day 2 of Operation Purge, I discovered that we had a little water problem. For an old house, the basement has been remarkably dry in this wet climate. I’ve only had a leak one time (in a different part of the basement) and that was because my neighbor’s downspout was pouring into my side yard. Once he fixed it, we dried out and it’s been dry since. This time however, it was entirely different and so much worse.

We had used one half of the basement for a tv area years ago. TV and storage, of course, for all that crap we couldn’t part with. So, that part of the basement had carpet on the concrete floor. Wow! Carpet holds a lot of water! And supports the growth of fungi! The things one learns in the basement… Everything sitting on the carpet was wet. Boxes of toys, baby clothes, out of date encyclopedias, childhood art projects, stuffed animals, assorted crap, you name it ~ all wet. All going in the truck and to the dump.

Over the course of the week, I took two loads of junk and one load of recycling (free!) to the dump. I have one more load ready to go and still lots of stuff to sort through. It made me a little sad and a lot nostalgic to see all the phases of my daughter’s life in those boxes. I was really fine with throwing out stuff that should have been chucked out years ago, but some of it caught at my heartstrings. I saved photos even if they were wet, and some of her art. Plenty of stuff was not salvageable, though. I tried to be strong and very firm with myself. I had asked Zoe for a list of things she really couldn’t part with and amazingly, about 80% of what she wanted to save was in a box together and dry. That made me happy.

So, I got rid of a bunch and sorted a bunch and still have lots of work to do, but it is a much more manageable task now. The real drag of the whole project was that two days after I got the wet carpeting out and everything spread out to dry, we had some torrential rain and sure enough, the basement still leaks. But now, I didn’t have the carpet to hold the water in place so it spread out further than it ever had! Criminetly! Stuff that I had saved was now wetter than ever! Argh! I made a dam out of an old blanket which had not yet made it to the dump, and held back most of the water. Of course, we are having the wettest spring on record and I’m going down to the basement after work every night and soaking up stinky water with old towels and wringing it into a bucket.

I told a coworker about my leaking basement and he said, “Oh yeah, we call it the indoor pool!” I guess it’s a Pacific Northwest thing… ya gotta laugh ~ there’s already too much water to cry.

Random

I had a dream last night, or rather very early this morning. It was quite vivid, cinematic. It began suddenly, as if I dropped into a dream that was already happening, or into someone else’s dream.

In the dream, Zoe and I were driving. Well, Zoe was driving and I dropped into the passenger seat. It was dusk, and night was quickly darkening the sky. We were in the wide open west, traveling across a vast valley with dark mountains towering in the distance.

As we drove, lights came on in clusters far away from the highway. We were headed to a mountain pass through which we could just see the fading light of sunset. There was a sense of urgency in our journey, but where we were going I can’t say.

We approached the pass. Lights from houses were visible but did not illuminate their surroundings. They served as decorations to the highway, sparkling signposts with no direction. We began the climb to the summit. I could hear the engine and feel the vibration shift in the car. We wound back and forth across the face of the slope, nearer and nearer to the top.

I don’t know what was beyond the pass because, as it often happens in dreams, I awoke before reaching either the top or a conclusion. While it’s frustrating not to see the end of a story, I felt good about the dream. I felt as if I had spent time with Zoe. Her presence is so familiar, her energy so constant and reliable.

Zoe has a remarkable ability to direct her dreams. I am going to try to do so tonight, so that I can see where we are headed. I mean that literally and metaphorically. I want so much for my daughter; sometimes it seems that I want more for her than she does.

Her happiness is important to me. I realize that at age 25 her life is hers to manage. Oh! If only I had a magic wand and the perfect spells to cast! The things I would change! Voila, no more bad boyfriend! Poof, back in the Pacific Northwest! Zap, back in college!

One of the hardest things about being a parent is letting go. I've had to do so and there have been agonizing times to live through. My life is no success story which gives me the experience to say, "You don't need to go through this." But, apparently, there are lessons that must be learned first hand and slowly (painfully so from my perspective).

I miss my daughter every single day.

Anonymous and Invisible

Hair color and pattern are genetic traits so I have always known how my hair will look when I get old. My mother started going gray when she was in her early twenties. She now has a beautiful head of white hair ~ as did her mother. I definitely had strands of gray in my early twenties, increasing from the front to the back as every decade passed.

I started coloring my hair in my mid-thirties. It was easy ~ a $5 box of Clairol and I was good to go. It changed my outward appearance just a little. Made me look my age, rather than a few years older. After a couple of years I threw caution to the wind and dyed my hair bright pink. That was fun but it wore thin pretty quickly. After that I went back to auburn brown but kept a pink streak in the front. Eventually I got tired of the two color dye job, gave up the pink streak and was content to be an anonymous brunette.

The great thing about hair is that it grows out. That is also the drag of it, when you color your hair; always dealing with the racing stripe. For blondes, it’s the dark roots. For older gals like me, it’s the silver shining through.

Several years ago I stopped coloring my hair. I wanted to see how much gray there was and I just wasn’t bothered enough about it to put forth the effort of maintaining the color. I let it get a pretty good grow-out and then cut it short. I really liked it! I liked it short and I liked it gray.

That was when I truly became aware of the invisibility factor.

Old people, especially women, are invisible in our society. We are not valued in our youth-obsessed culture. I was surprised at how people’s eyes just slid over me as if I wasn’t there. I have always enjoyed/suffered attention from oglers – not that I am fabulously beautiful, just pretty and friendly. Oh, and I have big tits. I was surprised when that stopped happening; and surprised at how immediately it stopped. (As an aside, I was talking with two of my best friends about this and they said it is the same for large women. They feel completely invisible unless they are an object of scorn.)

So, I was mulling this over yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day and I left work a little early to walk home. I walked through the Portland State University neighborhood, and past St Mary’s Academy (a catholic high school for girls). I was part of the stream of pedestrians going about their business but at the same time, not part of it. When surrounded by college or high school age students, it is obvious that I am much older. I am already fading into the background.

I was thinking about it especially because my 50th birthday is coming up and it’s a good time to assess one’s life. I have decided to cut my hair again and let it grow out to its natural color. I’m not going to cut it quite as short as the last time – I’m thinking chin length – but definitely going back to gray/white/silver. I’ve been coloring it of late so that I don’t look so much older than my girlfriend. But, I’m getting over that. I know we’re the same age; I don’t care all that much what other people think.

I’m prepared to become invisible again. One can get away with a lot when nobody pays attention to you. I may take up a life of crime! More likely, I will continue my self-appointed task of observing and reporting on life. It’s easier to do so from the periphery. And more comfortable knowing that no one is looking back at you.

Milk

We saw “Milk” the other day. It was heartbreaking – in more than one way.

I grew up in the Bay Area, not San Francisco, but down the peninsula. I remember the times; I remember seeing Harvey Milk at a Pride parade in the City. It was wild back then! It was good and bad. One day it felt like anything was possible. The next day our gay brothers were dying right and left.

I remember the day that Milk and Moscone were shot. I remember the newscast when Dianne Feinstein announced their murders and took charge. I remember crying. I remember the absolute incredulity we felt at the “Twinkie Defense” and the outrage at the brevity of the sentence.

And, while I remembered all of that, watching the movie, what really broke my heart is the realization that we are still fighting the same damned battle. We are still second class citizens. We are still denied our civil rights. Sometimes it feels like progress is being made, but mostly it’s one step forward – two steps back. I get discouraged sometimes at the lack of real, substantive progress, the kind that is codified into law.

But, yes, there has been progress. My girlfriend and I are able to live openly. We can hold hands in the grocery store. Ok, only in the “gay” Fred Meyer by our house in NE Portland; we’d never do that in, say, Vancouver or Gresham or Hillsboro. Again, a glimmer of change but limited. My employer can’t fire me because I’m gay. In fact, I am able to cover my girlfriend on my health insurance – that’s a huge step forward. True, same sex domestic partners are taxed on the benefit while heterosexual married couples are not. Why is there always a qualification to the progress? Why does there have to be two steps back?

I know that in the future there will be equal rights for all. I know that we will have to fight to win those rights. My hope is that in the future, if I have a mixed race, homosexual, differently-abled great grandchild, she or he will have the same rights and privileges as any other citizen of the country.

We’ve got a long road ahead.

Thoughts about Wyoming

With the ten year anniversary of the hate crime that took Matthew Shepard’s life, I am thinking about Wyoming. As are so many us.

Have you been to Wyoming? Have you driven through the state or visited Yellowstone? I’ve done both in the last decade.

My daughter and I took a road trip through the upper Western states when she was transitioning from middle school to high school. She had gone to an “alternative” middle school, run by hippie-ish types that encouraged self expression, among other things. Part of her self expression was her pink, orange and purple hair. As we left Yellowstone, driving through western Wyoming, she got a scarf out of her bag to cover her hair. I asked her why and she said, “They kill people for being different here. I don’t want any of them to see my hair.” What’s a mother to say to that?

This spring my girlfriend and I flew out to Michigan to collect my daughter’s car and drive it back to Portland. On day two, as we approached the Wyoming state line, we got into an argument. We spent a couple of hours in stony silence. As we drove through Laramie we both started crying. “Why are we doing this to each other?” we cried. “We have to be strong together to fight against the assholes of this world.” We felt very strongly the sorrow, fear and shame that linger in Laramie; or at least linger in our minds when we think about Laramie. We couldn’t stop there, even though we needed gas. We couldn’t set foot on that ground, spend money in their town, even look away from the highway. Every fence reminded us. We pressed on through the town and filled the tank away to the west, in Rawlins. We were on edge through the whole state, and Utah wasn’t much better. We didn’t really breathe easily until we were cruising through the Gorge on the outskirts of Portland. So. Glad. To. Be. Home.

And, Wyoming? I don’t hate the place. I don’t hate the people. I don’t want to increase the balance of animosity in the world; I want to reduce it. I don’t feel safe in vast areas in the middle of the US, and I resent the fact that I feel I must be on guard when traveling in those places. But I am determined to give everyone a fair shake, an unbiased hearing before I make up my mind. There are probably wonderful things about Wyoming and I would be happy to hear about them. True, I’ll never live there, but I would like to travel through it or visit without fear.

IMPOSTER

I said earlier that I wore scarves to keep my neck warm. That’s true. Scarves, like all accessories of femininity, are mysterious objects to me. I never learned how to wear them or apply them or accoutrement with them.

Today, however, I am wearing a scarf. I’m wearing it because:
a) it’s keeping my neck warm
b) I got it at Race for the Cure last weekend and
c) it’s pretty and matches my shirt quite nicely

But, here’s the thing of it: I feel like an imposter. Like a female impersonator when I wear a scarf as decoration. I feel as if there is an aura of inept about me because it is so obvious that I don’t know what the hell to do with a scarf.

Mostly, I just drape it around my neck. I like this particular style of scarf because it’s long and linear and looks ok just hanging there. The ones that are big squares are harder to deal with, for me. I’ve seen women who tie a scarf quite stylishly or even artistically and they look so… put together. They usually also have some sort of jewelry attached to their upper body. A pin. Or, is it called a brooch or a broach? That sounds like a grandma word! And, of course, all the coordinating stuff like earrings, necklace, bracelets and rings all matching.

I’m not much for jewelry either. A number of years ago my friend Lisa suggested that I wear a necklace to “break up the vast expanse of décolletage”. Well, shoot. Ok, yeah, I’m a chesty shaped girl, it’s true, but vast expanse? So, naturally, I took her advice. Lisa is my diametric opposite when it comes to accessories. She has them, understands them, and wears them. And looks good in them, looks like she should.

I wear a little silver necklace most of the time now – because of the vast expanse. I bought it in Mexico when we were down there on a short get-away. It does its job re the expanse, and I think it also gives me an ever so slightly more girly look. I’ve been pretty neutral for many years. As androgynous as a non-bound chesty gal can look.

Also, I’m now sporting a little silver ring, courtesy of my beloved. We got them this summer when we went to the beach for the weekend. We were staying in Lincoln City and drove south to Depoe Bay to eat at the Sea Hag. While we were perusing the shops I had a little fit and said, “I want you to buy me a ring!” Well, not here in this gift shop full of plastic starfish and tacky t-shirts, she replied. We made our way all the way to the end of the boardwalk and the last store was a silver jewelry store. She doesn’t like the fact that she gave me a sterling silver ring, devoid of bling. Personally, I suits me just fine. Matches my little necklace and goes great with this scarf!