on families, mispronunciation, gays, bad luck, and planetary action

families:

i attended my third birth on wednesday, august 4th. this one was extra special to me because the new baby has two mamas. everything went smoothly. birth mama had an epidural, so she and her partner napped for a few hours while i ate cupcakes and read trashy celebrity magazines. then she woke up and popped out a 9 lbs. baby girl like it ain't no thang. they were all beautiful. another little leo in the world, making a grand entrance with cocorosie playing in the background. they brought a little magazine clipping about these gay penguins at a zoo who wanted to parent so badly, they kept stealing everyone else's eggs. finally, the zoo gave them some abandoned eggs to hatched and they turned out to be the best penguin parents in the whole zoo.

this past week my family came to visit. we are a much different family than the one described above. this was the first time i've seen them in over a year and i remember why i don't visit them more often (as if i could forget). they still lecture me about everything, like that time i was 13 and didn't finish my antibitotics. (sorry, okay! sorry! i can't still be sorry 12 years later...sorry, world for the super germs and everything...).

we hold hands and pray before every meal. in public. i just keep my eyes open and sigh. they tell god what they won't tell me. "let becca now that we are proud of her and that we love her..." why don't they just let me know? why is it god's job? my dad pronounces the "l" in salmon. this is very embarassing because it's a word you say a lot in seattle. he will not be corrected.

i kept them busy. i tried to be positive. we had a bbq at the park and all my friends came to meet the family. "you're family's so adorable!" "oh they were really nice!" is what my friends said. i was hyper aware of every f-bomb dropped and worried about whether i should tell them that they're socializing with somone i'm kind of dating...

gays:

the day the lesbians had their baby was the day the court rules prop 8 unconstitutional. i know we have a long way to go, but it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and two gay victories made it an extra special day.

my little sister and i talked about my coming out letter for the first time. i told her everything and she was so impressively open and non-judgmental. she said, "i'm glad you told us. i think you did the right thing." she's smart. she's too smart for her high school and for our town. here, we went to youth readings and art walks and outdoor movies and restaurants together. i want to rescue her from ohio.

bad luck:

my purse got stolen last week from a bar. at first, i tried to have faith in humanity and thought that perhaps someone had taken it by mistake. then they started using my cards and my phone. then i got really cynical and told everyone, even the lady who cut my hair. i wanted the world to pity me. who does that? how to such shitty people exist? people who make multiple $50 purchases at the chevron in renton?

planetary action:

the day the lesbians had their baby was the day that saturn, venus, and mars are all visible together in the sky. i haven't seen them yet. the night before, there were solar flares the reflected in such a way that you were supposed to be able to see the northern lights from seattle. we were already in bed, but we made ourselves get up and drive around to look for them. all we saw was weird lightning in the east. maybe it was the solar flares?

this week the persiads peaked. i didn't see them. it's too light in the city and i was too tired to stay up past 11pm. but on our way home the other night, claudia, idil, and i stopped in a park and found some people looking through a high-powered telescope. they were looking at jupiter and its moons. we could see four of the moons. jupiter has at least 63 moons.