i love nasal irrigation!

i've caught my first texas cold!

leslie was sick earlier this week, and it was pretty much inevitable. which means this weekend i'm not able to do either of the things i had planned on doing: drink beer or go to a birth. not at the same time, obvs. but, alas, here i am, sitting amidst a dirty pile of tissues with only one more season of battlestar galactica left to watch.

the only consolation is that we finally got a netipot. it's something i've been meaning to do for a few years now, and i'm not sure why i haven't because it's the most satisfying thing ever! i want to do it all the time, and i plan on doing it even when i'm done being sick. i love shit like that! why haven't i used one before?!

life has been picking up. i'm already busy and somewhat sleep-deprived, which i see as a sign of building a healthy social life, yes? i've been making friends with some of my co-workers, and we've met some pretty swell people lately. i actually went dancing saturday and sunday night last week. yeah, that's right. and the sunday night dance party was at a vegan bakery doughnut party. larissa and liz b, we're gonna get you some goood vegan doughnuts when you come to visit. now that we've found quality vegan doughnuts, i think we can finally settle in here.

speaking of delicious food, thanksgiving is next week! in addition to my baby sister turning 17 years old, it means to break out the casserole dishes and the 'ol church cookbook. it means i need to stock up on sour cream, cheddar cheese, cream of mushroom soup, and crushed cornflakes: the staples for any decent midwest hotdish.

i planned on having our own 'lil tofurkey dinner here, but it turns out that we're actually getting invited places. whaaaa? our neighbors invited us next door, and described the menu in graphic detail. i'm pretty sure everything had bacon in the ingredients list, except for the turkey, but the thought was nice. also, my mom's childhood friend apparently lives in san antonio and keeps calling to invite me to dinner. it's a sweet gesture, but it makes me feel awkward all over. thanksgiving at a stranger's house? a stranger that may or may not know i'll be bringing my girlfriend and probably does not know what line of work i'm in? no thanks. so not all the invitations are super desirable, but it feels nice to be thought of anyway. i plan on fresh squeeze mimosas in the morning with our backyard neighbor, and some thanksgiving party hopping, hopefully resulting in either karaoke or a food coma.

in other news, i finally found some train conductor stripey pants. every time i go into a thrift store, i look for these pants. i've wanted them for years and years, ever since i outgrew some pink and white oshkoshbgosh overalls in third grade. finally, after a 16 year search, they are mine. ha! also, i found six amazing vintage hats, all feathery and nettingy. i tried them all on, but only allowed myself to buy two. now, i just need occasion to wear all these things. somebody throw a 40s costume party! i've got an outfit waiting to happen.

i have nothing else to report. back to hulu and cleansing my nasal passages.

drink your juice, shelby

i fear that the days when i used to have enough brain space to devote to creative writing may be no more...it used to be an outlet, now i just feel uninspired to write most of the time. my brain is just full of other things.

first and foremost, i got my birth! it was an all-nighter, and delightfully uneventful. mama labored with minimal pain meds, and mostly without an iv tying her down or a fetal monitor inhibiting her movement, so we got to work in all kinds of fun positions. i used my new rebozo and my new hot water bottle and the coconut water i put in my bag. within 5 minutes after popping a pretty sizable baby out, mama says, "i could definitely do that again." ha! ah, no love like the love in a room when parents meet the baby for the first time on the other side of the uterus. it's thick, sort of suffocating, but in a good way, heavy, like having the wind knocked out of you.

but the longer-lasting outcome for me is that i think i can finally complete my certification now, which has been two years in the making! yahoo!

and i decided that i like my rebozo more as a scarf. so i washed it, but i'll probably wear it as a scarf from now on, which was it's original purpose. but now it has magical powers.

my lady was finally hired, not once, but TWICE. she's working with youngsters and she's working with baked goods.

i tried to find an anne geddes baby-dress-as-cupcake...you'd think it would easy. it's not!

so we're now a fully-employed household...just in time for a major brake fluid leak in the truck that cost $600 to repair. that's like...a month's rent. more than a month's student loan payment. that would have paid for a plane ticket to be with my family for the holidays. 6x the business casual wardrobe i have now. pet food for more than a year. curses!!

but there's always something. this weekend i'm going in to wells fargo and closing my (modest) bank account, and taking my dollars to a local credit union. it'll be hard to give wells fargo the "fuck you" that i'd like to, since the tellers there are always so kind to me. but it's something, at least.

what else? we bought a juicer from craigslist. $10 (we could have had SIXTY juicers for what it cost us to fix our truck!). we watched forks over knives, then some movie about this guy doing a juice fast and turning his life around, and we decided to eat more whole foods. that, and make kale, celery, apple juice. among other things. having fresh squeezed orange juice in the morning sure is a treat. i was poking around on my lil' sister's facebook wall and she wrote something about how my mother would only let us drink a tiny glass of juice a day when i was growing up. we used to joke about how strict she was an how crazy that rule had been. in retrospect, i think it was because we were poor, and possibly because of the high sugar content in juice. but i realized it's just one more way i have gone against the values my parents worked so hard to instill in me.

just look at me.

look what i've become.

i'm a non-church attending, politically progressive GAY lady, living in sin with an unmarried partner, working at a babykilling factory, drinking COPIOUS, unmeasured amounts of JUICE!!!

what deadly sin will i commit next?

*sigh* the funny thing is, i never planned for it to happen that way.

just goes to show that if you start questioning why women shave their body hair, it's a slippery slope right into the depths of hell.

pious: out of the pew and into the party

this is the title that my brain came up with in a dream.

the dream was really long and mostly full of nonsense, including a part where gabrielle from xena knocked on my car window in the middle of an ohio wheat field and offered me a half eaten fudgesicle.

at the end of the dream i was in a room of people who didn't know each other very well and we were playing a horrible charades/20 questions/hangman fusion mixer game. each person had to go to the front and get the audience to guess the title of their life memoir as it would be titled at that particular moment.

gabrielle appeared because i've been watching too much xena before bed.

the title came from i don't know. talking about my sunday school feltboard halloween costume? recent conflict with my family? pressure to come up with a concise bio for the doula collective?

it happened right before i woke up. i googled it because i thought maybe i read it somewhere, but i didn't find anything.

i've heard that dreams are where you process what you haven't processed consciously. i've also heard that they're an alternate reality. and also that what we think is real is our brain tricking us. and that our whole existence might be controlled by another reality beyond us. like sims.

i don't know anything about sims, except that yesterday leslie told me that one of her sims characters was about to have a baby. which is funny, because i'm on call for someone to have a baby right now. "make her have it at home!" i shouted, moving closer to the screen. all of the other characters were freaking their shit, grabbing their hair and jumping up and down screaming. leslie took pictures. the mother-to-be started walking out of the house. "stop her! put her in the bathroom!" "i can't, haha, i don't have control anymore." we watched as the mother and father got into a car and drove to the hospital, where everyone the laboring mother passed also starting freaking their shit. we weren't allowed to see what happened in the hospital, but a few minutes later, a new simbaby was born.

"how long do they live?"

"well, it'll take a couple of days for the baby to become a toddler. they usually live about 50-60 sims days, but if there is a skilled gardener in the household they can eat something called 'lifefruit' and extend their lives an extra day every time they eat it."

meanwhile, leslie was deciding what personality trait to assign the new baby. "let's make him...a genius."

.....i can't help but feel like someone is messing with me that way....

anyway, no baby yet in what i think is reality. but it's a full moon, so we'll see.

i've been through the desert in a truck with no a/c...

a dry-erase fridge and a composting toilet!!

that's right, friends. but it feels good to be out of the rain.

just a little over a year ago i had my first desert experience when went camping with shana, idil, and alex in angeles national forest. but it wasn't really a forest. it was the desert. and i was terrified. we saw a scorpion within hours, i was sure we were being stalked by mountain lions, and i stomped on the ground where'er i walked, expecting a rattlesnake to strike at any moment. seriously out of my element.

as you can see, the sexy danger is "very high"

in the woods, there are hiding places. there is shade and water. there are little bugs under every rock that you can eat if you're desperate.

not in the desert. not during august.

the first part of the journey was smooth sailing. we booked it down I-5 all the way to l.a., with rowdy and a sedated t.k. (we decided to drug him for sure after the little shit ran away the day before we moved!) napping comfortably (for the most part) in the backseat.

sedated t.k. on a leash

a close-up

we left l.a. at 5am on friday morning. it started getting hot around 9am, somewhere in the arizona desert. nothing a few bags of ice and some dorky matching neck bandanas for the whole family (minus asha) can't fix!

and...it really hasn't really stopped being hot since then. at first i thought i was just being a baby, but it turns out everyone in texas is complaining about the weather, too.

so, here we are. now i live in the desert. practically. well, not technically, but there are still rattlesnakes in austin. i looked it up.

but the benefits outweigh the rattlesnakes and maybe even the heat:

tex mex food trucks EVERYWHERE.

a magazine called garden & gun??!!


an amazing food co-op. (everything is cheaper!!)



a local timebank.

two hip 'lil coffeeshops around the corner from my house.

shiner in a can. in fact, there is a place here that gives you free beer while they cut your hair.

a doula co-op.

and gays everywhere, apparently. our landlady, our neighbors, everyone we buy something from on craigslist. without even looking for them. gay!

there are plenty of great things to do, but not until we have jobs.

until then, aside from craigslist furniture round-up and ikea treasure-hunting, we've mostly stayed in for xena marathons and master chef (liz t. and amy, you should finish the season!). it's too hot to sleep in our loft right now and we don't have a bed anyway, so the entire family (minus asha) has been curling up on the living "space" futon in front of the a/c every night. i had a job interview at an abortion clinic (ask me how i re-worded that one for my mother another time...), am waiting to attend a birth for the co-op, and have sprinkled various other job applications throughout the city. leslie got tricked into signing us up to perform in a talent show to benefit planned parenthood at the end of the month. tonight we're going to see a free los lonely boys show at blues on the green.

so much to explore as soon as we're done with six seasons of xena.

friends, wherever you are in the world right now, we miss and love you!!

update in bullet points

greetings, faithful followers.

speaking of which, who's ready to be raptured this weekend? if you are, make sure your pets are all taken care of (thanks, amy). you can also prepare a rapture survival kit, so the people you left behind know where you've gone.


luckily, i plan to stick around with tk and asha, so we're good. i just hope the chaos doesn't interfere with the no pants dance party we're having on saturday...

in other news:,

• milady and i are moving to austin, tx mid-august. v. exciting.
• went to vanouver, bc this weekend. some notes on vancouver: kind of like seattle w/ less interesting architecture, delicious all-dressed ruffles potato chips, everyone has the same haircut as me, veggie poutine, and our car broke down and is still there.

• the hours of my job are really getting to me...i contacted 2 temp agencies today. we'll see how it goes.
  
• i just got foodstamps and joined the y. cashing in on the poverty. am going to start lifting weights and getting really strong. oh yes.
• just read 3 books in the beebo brinker chronicles, which is amazing lesbian pulp ficture from the 1950s. i highly recommend this series, and you should definitely read the forwards and notes by the author.

too much to do! i'll be back with creative, substantial writing someday....

hoppy holidays!

it's that time of year again: SPRING CLEANING!!!!!

SPRING CLEANING is my 3rd favorite reflective/self-improvement holiday of the year (after new year's and my birthday....hm, looks like a need something in the fall...).

new year's is for thinking about all the new things i want to learn and do.

my birthday is for reflection on how i've grown in knowledge and in love in the past year (as my dear liz t. says).

SPRING CLEANING is for cleansing the house, body, soul, mind, in a way that is instantly gratifying and tangible.

it is a time during which i clean my room and get rid of all the fabric scraps, shattered glass, and magazines that i've been hoarding for "art projects."

it is a time during which i remember about exercising and start moving my body again, rebuilding my bike muscles, flailing about my neighborhood on very slow runs, going to yoga to sweat winter out of my pores.

it is a time during which i clean out my digestive system by drinking mudshakes twice a day and eating only wholesome, homecooked foods.



it is a time during which i commission my brilliant, taurus lady friend to make an excel spreadsheet so i can track my daily disciplines.

it is a time for cute baby animals, cherry blossoms, sleepy tulips opening their lil petals.

new life!!!



happy SPRING CLEANING, everyone!!

you are asleep.

i just rode my bike uphill at 2:30am. the world is different now. it's both scarier and calmer. i'm scared because i feel vulnerable. but then, it's nice to have the streets to myself, to fantasize that everyone else has disappeared and i no longer have to obey red lights, or stay in the right lane. that thought is also scary, from a sci fi movie or the bible.

and things look empty, but also like they're resting. i biked past the library. i was just there a few hours ago, but now it's asleep. the buses: asleep.

i thought biking would wear me out so i could fall asleep. eli said, "it tires the body, but wakes up the mind." he was right. even my eyelids are tired. i like quizzing everyone at work about their sleeping schedules, since i'm not used to working a bar shift. some of them sleep until 2pm and don't care. others, like me, wish they could wake up earlier.

i'm letting tk lick me because i'm salty from the sweat. he likes to lick me when i'm sweaty and when i'm fresh out of the shower, for some reason. when he was a kitten, he licked me all the time. i'd hop from one foot to the other while i got dressed because if i stood still, he's lick me. i'd lift me legs off the ground while i was on the toilet.

i will go to bed in a few minutes, even though my mind is awake. i'll crawl under the covers with my lady and she'll make adorable sleep noises. then in three hours it'll be opposite. she'll be waking up and getting ready to leave for work and i'll make the sleep noises. even though i'll want to be awake to say goodbye, my body will force me to stay lying down. a heavy fog of sleepiness.

but now that's hard to imagine.

i want to be writing this on my typewriter, but i can't, because i'd wake everybody up. if this were my typewriter, i'd have a lot more things to say. about my mother, mostly. and myself. and how we're connected and not connected.

on saturday idil and i went to vashon island. it was pouring down rain, but we went anyway. it was funny because we drove all the way out to this lighthouse for a scenic view and when we got there, we just sat in the car for a moment. she said, "uh...heh, do you want to get out and see it?" and i said, "ummm...suuurree...well, it's just that--" she said, "i feel like we SHOULD go see it, but i don't want to!" i said, "haha, me either! i don't want to go see it!" so we just laughed and sat there and saw the scenic view from the car.

but it was nice to talk. i told her about everything, about about how i feel about myself these days, which isn't great. she told me about her saturn returns class and about internalized sexism and what that all has to do with our mothers.

i realized that i don't really know my mother. then i realized that i don't know if anyone knows my mother. and a lot of other things that made me feel sad, humble, and human.

but , to make a long story shorter so i can go to bed now, it all came down to:

we are all trying to survive. it is easier to have compassion for others than for myself. we are all doing the best we can.

something in the deli aisle made me cry

can anyone tell me what the hell is going on in the universe right now? mercury isn't even in retrograde (although, dear lord, it's going to be next week for nearly a month!), but things are pretty broken right now.

probably needless to say, my life didn't get as instantly perfect as i thought when i quit theo. i've had a lot of things piling up for a very long time, and, as they say, something's gotta give.

it's hard to believe i never used to cry, because this past week i wept like an angry baby. or maybe a sad baby. or an overwhelmed baby.

i know that i'm being selfish and that life could be a whole lot worse than broken cars, bad colds, bank account errors, and cell phones possibly lost in dumpsters at 2am, when your clothes are soaking wet and your fingers are all wrinkly and smell like tartar sauce....

i know that.

my recent tantrums have pretty much been like they've been whenever i've had tantrums throughout my life: "it's *sobsob* not *snort* faaaiirrrrr *many sobs*"

yes, that's pretty much been my mantra at age 5, 15, and 25. over the same stupid things, more or less.

...i don't know what i'm getting at, really. maybe because it's 4am (wow, i'm turning nocturnal! i didn't think it was possible...).

here's what i need:

• a whole week to sleep (this will never happen)
• a mentor and/or therapist (if anyone has any recommendations for someone older, wiser, or professionally trained to listen to my problems and tell me what to do for a reasonable price, please let me know.)
• everyone who interacts with me regularly to be patient with me.

i think i just needed to throw a bit of a fit, let it out...put things into perspective so i can be free to move on to stuff that matters.

but i needed to be selfish for a minute.

blood and sand

guess what time it is? monday at noon! guess where i'm not? work!

i'm emerging, slightly weary and worn, but that's to be expected. i just lived through one of the craziest weeks of my life to date.

i was training my replacement at theo, attended a birth, took care of my lady post-wisdom tooth extraction, and started my new job.


and bam! here i am on the other side of things. the blurry, exhausted calm after the storm, and i'm trying to determine whether or not i lived through it, and what injuries i have, and what exactly happened.

kind of like liam, the baby who came into the world at 10:09pm on tuesday, after an 18-hour labor and nearly every medical intervention possible. i really think he wanted to stay in there, and i don't blame him. he was over 9lbs, and had this 'lil baby "who dares disturb my slumber!" look on his face.

friday i said goobye to theo in a rush. the store gave me an orchid. i'm afraid of killing it. the last person i hugged was the cfo, who nobody hugs, but i was crying and i think he was afraid, so he went along with it at least.

i went straight to my first 10-hour shift, which was also opening night at the bar. i arrived at 4pm to a state of utter chaos. seriously. the tables were being drilled together, shelves were being attached to walls, there were at least 15 people buzzing around in panic mode, trying to pull everything together. we opened at 5pm. i opened. i turned the key and welcomed the very first customer through the door. a birth, of sorts. i'm good at those transitions.

an 18 hour labor on tuesday. an 18 hour labor on friday.

that's a lot of laboring.

saturday i cried again. i couldn't think of why i was crying. it was just a physical manifestation of unprocessed emotions.

i never used to cry. remember when i only cried twice a year? well, ever since my cycle started to become regular, so did my tears. i think that's a good thing. i've always known i was emotional, but not being able to have the release of crying was always frustrating.

so. that was my week. whaddya think?

i think i could sleep for 100 years.


but there is much to be done. i'm kind of nervous. did i make the right choices? is voluntary quitting a good job and demoting oneself wise? i really am a horrible capitalist. i'm in serious need of a mentor, and of lots of people to tell me everything will be okay.

ass manger*

oh hey, it's my monthly dropping a line to my probably dwindling readerhood (two-day later edit! welcome new readers i just discovered!). today i'm reporting from my cleaner-than-it's-ever-been room, with tk curled up at my feet, candlelight only, and devotchka pandora....if you think that sounds magical, you're right. this is actually what's happening, live (actually, it's not live anymore. this edited post is 2 days old, but you can imagine when it was live):


but alas, my hungry-and-maybe-pretend followers, this is the eve of a new era! an era of good mental health, daily balance, the birth of a birth business, and a reclamation of my social life.

....and the transition's a bitch. right now i sort of have three jobs: i'm helping to hire and train my replacement at theo (during the thick of valentine's season, so you can imagine how that was), i start training to be a barback/doorperson in the gayborhood, and i'm on call for a birth at this very minute.

but then my life will be bliss! i will have my day times back ! i will spend time in nature! i will make cheese! i will either befriend a goat or someone who owns a goat! i will find a couch for our living room and patronize the businesses in by neighborhood! i'm so effing excited to be a normal human being and to see what happens in the world when one's not at work!

besides taking an entire month to quit my job, i've been piece-by-piece collecting the tools, skillz, and inspiration i'll need to launch myself into above-described life.

i started by finally taking the gay kickboxing class at the ymca and the lizzes are always raving about, and for good reason! my high school tae bo experience really prepared me for what would have completely kicked my ass...it's not actually gay kickboxing; and the main demographic of the class is straight women (with a couple of their straight boyfriends who they dragged along). but donny, the instructor, is gay and i am gay, and that made it...something. anyway, it was absolutely amazing and if you're not kickboxing to dance music re-mixes with donny, you're not really kickboxing. that's what i think.

if my life this month were a movie montage, it would start in the kickboxing class to dance music from the best of bootie, which you should all go listen to immediately, or maybe eye of the tiger, like in persepolis, and during my sweaty cross-punching, you'd see:

• my frantic, studious note-taking during a cheese-making class, with a serious look on my face as i plot how to obtain a goat...
• many pathetic scenes of me attempting to shop for new interview/work clothes, including going somewhere i haven't been in approximately 10 years: the mall. the suburban mall. luckily, i had the guidance of my fashion guru/someone who actually knows how to shop. her name is renai, and i credit her with my purchase of $20 dansco clogs from buffalo exchange today, which i wouldn't have thought of buying without her mentorship.
• a lot of empty wine bottles
• several interviews...me trying to hire someone, me trying to be hired, me super nervous
• asha coming out of hiding again and eating for the first time in months...me watching her shovel little bits of lettuce and pear into her teeny tiny mouth
  

um, then it'd pan back to gay kickboxing, and donny giving me a high-five and me with my hands on my hips, doing a little step touch while my heart rate goes back to normal, looking at my red-faced, smirking self in the wall-to-wall mirrors and being a bit pleased with the girl looking back at me for pulling this all together semi-successfully...yeah...

*dreamy face*



meanwhile, we might be having snowpocalypse part 2 tonight, while i'm supposed to be at work and maybe at the birth.

i'm kind of looking at going to ohio for a few days in early april. i want to see my mamaw while she's in relatively decent health, and i'd like to see my little sister's high school musical. actual text from claudia re: musical:

"i got the baker's wife in into the woods. if ur not familiar with the musical it's like, the lead. lol"

so, how can i pass that up?

well, if i can't afford it i'll have to pass it up.

i was talking to malinda on the phone today and venting about how it would be nice, for once (just once!), if mom and dad offered to chip in on the plane ticket. they're always lamenting about how far away we are and how much they'd love to see us...which was a slippery slope for venting about our parents in general.

me: "do you think dad thinks he's a good dad?
mal: "ha! yes! do you remember when i told him he was a bad father and that he should go to a parenting class?"
me: "not really? maybe, vaguely...?"
mal: "well i did, and he actually went to a parenting seminar, and do you know what it was called?"
me: "...?"
mal: "'you're a better parent than you think.' so, yes, i think he thinks he's a good dad. he found a professional to verify that."

and there you have it.

*the actual subject line of an emailed resume and cover letter that came in for to replace me. not the person we're hiring, obvs.

second coming of teh kitteh

here's my summary of 2010: a pretty intense year, with a lot of difficult, intense things, and a few really amazing, redeeming happenings.

difficult things:

• the beginning of urban family scatter/my friends start getting eaten by law school and other adulty things that threaten to snatch them away from me
• coming out to my family...and them pretending it never happened...
  
• having my job consume my life, and possibly parts of my soul (they may never grow back)
• being with oliver while he died
• my mamaw's health

amazing things:

• my urban family an d how much i love them and they love me
  
• coming out to my family...finding that i have some surprise allies
• quitting my job (hellz yeah, this is officially happening in less then a month!)
• being in love with the cutest 'lil taurus there ever was
• attending three births

urban family and i brought in the new year completely sober, standing in a circle of hippies, barefoot in a yoga studio, with a 2-minute "ohm" and a handful of rose petals.


in the hours that followed were not sober. we danced and grinned until dawn. yes, until dawn.

and here we are!!

i suppose resolution time is past due. i'm not going to bother analyzing my progress on last year's list, as is my usual tradition. i did some shit, and i didn't do some shit. the shit i didn't do that i still want to do will rollover to this year's list. deal? deal.

i started a list on the typewriter and here it is:

1. fix my bike (this means: replace stolen handlebars)
2. learn to make cheese (and this is also happening next week!)
3. can or pickle something
4. fix the button on those jeans i've been holding on to for 2 years
5. go to portland
6. go somewhere i've never been
7. go to yoga. don't stop going to yoga
8. learn something about gardening
9. learn to use power tools
10. finish my doula certification

oh, yeah, there: a nice, round list. oh, and find a job. i really gotta find a job. and probably start reading books that are neither re: childbirth or young adult fantasy fiction. and also, go back to the rainforest. yes.

good enough?

i think i'm in for a year to remember. the universe is surely shifting...