3 Whole Years
It’s almost been 3 whole years since I have come here and written anything. I almost can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.
I am here today to give an update for those still interested, and to talk about periods. (Yes, I am serious.)
UPDATE
The last time I wrote, I said I was afraid to write about the good times because something bad always happened after. I can now confidently say that things are good for Big D. He was hospitalized in 2017 for almost a month. He was placed on amazing meds and court-ordered to take them. We are nearly 3 years out, and he is still complying, even without the order in place anymore. We have him settled in his own house* (a small one we bought so he would always have a safe place to stay), and he has successfully taken care of it and himself. Now, granted if anything goes wrong, he calls us to fix it, but he can keep himself clean and fed and medicated. Last year we decided it was time for him to be a little more independent, and we bought him a car.** That enabled him to get a part time job with a local farm, where he planted and harvested vegetables. He did struggle toward the end of the fall to get himself out of the house and to the job, but we are taking baby steps. Growing season hasn’t started up again yet, but he has gone to remove snow and do some other odd jobs for his boss here and there. We also entered a new phase with him last year. Big D is officially a chicken dad! We helped him get set up with a coop and supplies***, and he now has 6 hens. When he first floated the idea to me (he knew I would be more on board than his mom) I thought maybe we could start off with 2 hens, 3 at most – but in our state, you have to buy them in lots of 6. It has to do with them being more socialized and not bored. Also, only people serious about the endeavor would get 6 living beings to take care of!
The chicks are doing great and started laying eggs on October 1st. The only blonde one lays enormous white eggs! Like jumbo-jumbo sized! It’s crazy. We know it’s her because she is the only one of a different breed (we don’t even know what breed that is) and the others all lay regular brown eggs. Big D keeps their coop clean and them all fed and happy. It teaches him more responsibility, give all of us fresh eggs, and also gives him the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.Big pluses all around!
We also got him a lawn tractor at the beginning of last summer****, and he has loved mowing his lawn! He even started mowing two of his neighbors lawns. If he had a trailer for his car, he would probably expand more. Prior to that, it would take the three of us (or two of us) up to 2 1/2 hours to push mow it with two mowers. He has 2 acres of land, and that is a lot to mow by push mower. So that’s the update on Big D.
* No, we are not rich. We used some of our retirement funds and got an excellent deal on the house. It’s needed a lot of work, but we are up for it.
** No, seriously, we’re not rich! We got him a 2005 Honda Element with a bunch of miles on it. So far, it runs great. Fingers crossed!
*** I was feeling overly generous last year and really wanted in on the fresh eggs!
**** This one was more for us, as mowing became an all day event. We are so glad he loves it as much as he does.
Now onto PERIODS
Why am I talking about periods here? Because I just turned 43 in January and my body has all of a sudden decided it didn’t want a period this month. As of this writing, I am officially 10 days overdue. I have been feeling like I have it for the last 10 days. I have been crampy, grumpy and bloated. It has not. been. fun. Can I really be entering Peri-menopause already?? Last night I had night sweats too… I hope this isn’t the way it will be all the time. I feel so big. I have gained about 8 lbs since Thanksgiving. Yes, it is probably winter weight, but as I get older, I worry about not being able to take it off. The really funny part of this is that even thought I am 100% lesbian, and have not had a penis anywhere near me in over 20 years, I always have the fear I am pregnant when I skip a period! Why is that? It makes absolutely no sense! If I was pregnant, I would be a millionaire because it would be immaculate conception. Anyway, I just wanted to bitch about this a little so you all know what you have to look forward to! 🙂 🙂
I hope all of you are well! I will not make any promises about writing more often, because I never do. I’m still alive and thriving 🙂
*EDITED TO ADD:
I got home last night and had a very minor disagreement with my wife (over what type of sunglasses look best on my face – I know, so stupid), and I just broke down crying. I was sobbing and sobbing and couldn’t stop. Nothing was really that bad, but my hormones were making me feel so emotional! She calmed me down and I went to bed early to see if extra sleep would help. I got up at 3:30 to go to the bathroom, and lo and behold Aunt Flo showed up. The dumb bitch is a whole 11 days late for her visit. 12 if you count the day she was supposed to show. UGH. Oh, and here’s one more chicken pic 🙂
2 months old
Long, long ago
Long, long ago I started this blog as a place just write any and everything that was on my mind. I was bored and had no focus. It evolved into a blog about my family and every now and again about politics, gun control and tv shows I like. Then something happened. Our son began to go down a mental rabbit hole and we were lost. I wrote a fair bit about him last year and the year before, and then I stopped writing altogether.
When Big D’s mental health started to go off the rails, I didn’t know what to do or where to go or how to help him. We did everything in our power to get him the help he needs – from Doctor’s appointments, to Therapy appointments (both family and him by himself) to medication and blood tests. We tried everything. It was sad to see him go down, and also very frustrating. Living with him became an absolute nightmare. He was edgy, moody, withdrawn, uninterested in life and definitely pretending to try and feel better, but not making an effort for real. I started going crazy. I was an emotional basket case. Every time he did something good, I would run here and write about it. Then the next day or week it would all fall apart again. I refuse to even talk about the good anymore, for fear it will all go away. We are all still alive. There have been huge changes, and two hospital stays (for him). There have been good days and bad days, and everything in between days. We take everything one step at a time. One day at a time.
A good friend (and former boss) of mine, has had to deal with both of her sons going down the rabbit hole of schizophrenia. The youngest took his own life almost 12 years ago. Their second son just started showing symptoms a few years ago. He is now in his thirties. It has been a big struggle and huge shock to them, as most people start showing signs in their teens. Her husband is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote a book about it all, which was just published recently. I can relate to the content so much.
My friend and I meet together for lunch every few months to talk about Big D, her surviving son,  and for me to get her advice about what we are doing and what we can be doing. She is great at teaching me when to let go of things and to appreciate the little victories. At the end of every lunch session, we always repeat our motto: One little victory at a time.
I’ve been around periodically – still reading, and sometimes commenting on your blogs. I miss this community. I miss this platform. I miss writing.
Maybe someday I will be back here more often.
Escape
I have been with my beautiful, amazing, sexy, brilliant wife for 12 years (in May ). We have been in a Civil Union for 11 years, and legally married for 6. I love her more and more each and every day. She is the light of my world, my rock and my best friend. We have been through so much lately with our son, and it’s been hard. Really hard. D also got promoted (again!) at work, and is working loads of hours – sometimes on the weekends too. She is being stretched thin in all aspects of her life right now. My work can be stressful, but not at all like hers, since she works in the human services field. I feel bad for her that she is so busy, on top of having to worry about our son constantly. Even still, through all the shit we have been through this past year, we are strong. We are 100% committed to this family and this life we have built together. I couldn’t ask for a better wife or friend to have by my side. She really is the best. If you’re reading this, I love you babe! (You already know this! 🙂 ❤ )
My life, although stressful with Big D, is still open at times because D is so busy. I have a choice about how to use that time – I can either obsess about Big D and all of the stuff that goes along with it, or I can escape into another world. For me, as explained in my last post, that is television (or movies). TV has always been my escape and my safe haven. If the show is really good, I can lose myself in it for a while. I can turn off the negative emotions and stress, and just melt into someone else’s story. Writing is that way for me too, but along the way I’ve lost that. I am trying to get back to it now (hence two posts in two days 🙂 ). But I really want to write a story and not just blogs. Recently I had a Eureka moment when it comes to writing. I have always had the problem of starting stories and not finishing them. I am always striving for the big word counts, but falling short at about 25,000 words or so. Then, just this week I read something about short stories and I thought, “I am so dumb! 39 years on the earth and I never thought of trying to write short stories!” (15,000 words or so). Don’t get me wrong, I have written short stories before, but I never thought of them as being as good as the longer ones I have attempted. That changes now. I will attempt to write, and possibly submit to either a publication or a contest, at least one short story. I’ve been looking around for inspiration and have found some writing sites that give you scenarios to go off of or random words. So I am starting there. If anyone has any inspiration to share (or a story you would want to read) let me know!
In the meantime, and in between, my escape is mostly Orphan Black. I can (and have) watched all three seasons all the way through at least 5 times each. I never tire of it, and it never tires of me 🙂
What is your escape? What makes you happy when the world wants to bring you down?
A post about something you probably don’t care about
Hello everyone! It’s been a loooooooonnnnnnngggggg time since my last post. Things with Big D are still day to day and stressful, but that is not what I am blogging about today. Today I came to blog about a popular trope in tv history: “Killing off the gay character.” (WARNING: This post will contain spoilers about The 100, Orphan Black season 3, and a few others, so if you haven’t watched yet and wish to keep reading, don’t say I didn’t warn you! 🙂 )
As many of my long time readers will know, I am absolutely obsessed with lesbian representation on TV. You may wonder why, since I am a 39 year old, married, (mostly) sane woman. I think I have figured it out. It’s because when I was growing up in the ’80’s and ’90’s, being gay wasn’t an option for me. What I mean is that growing up, I was never told I could be gay. Being gay was something people whispered about in disgust. It certainly wasn’t something people were proud to be. Consider how confusing this is to a child who is having same-sex attraction. I knew I liked girls when I was as young as 9 years old. 9! (I really knew when I was 6, but 9 was a turning point for me). Imagine knowing you like people of the same gender, and not being told it is something that could happen, or worse – being told it is wrong. Being basically forced to date people of the opposite gender, just because that is what is accepted (not at 9 of course, but later). This generation has not had that as much as my generation. People’s perceptions of GLBTQ people is mostly positive now. I know there are places where it still isn’t positive, but by the standards I grew up in, this time in history would be heaven!
For me, to have any lesbian representation on television is HUGE, and I actively seek it out. It started with Ellen Degeneres. She came out on her show in 1997, and I came out to my family a few weeks later. I was 20. Ellen gave me the courage to come out. My mom loves her, so I thought surely she would still love me. It was hard at first, but she did (and still does) love me, despite my sexuality. She (and my whole family) also love my wife, and for that I am really grateful. But believe me when I tell you, there was great fear of losing everything by coming out. I thought I would be disowned and kicked out of the house. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but it did happen a lot back then.
Of course after Ellen came out, her show tanked and it was cancelled. Lesson number one in a long string of disappointing lessons about the value of a lesbian on any show. The next show I got to see with lesbian characters was the L Word. This is the only show where there wasn’t only one or two lesbians, so when Dana died, it was really sad and people were angry, but there were plenty more women to choose from. There was a long break between the L Word and the next show I saw with lesbian representation, and that was Skins (UK). They didn’t kill off the lesbian in the original series, but Naomi gets killed off in the spin off. One more lesbian bites the dust. Then we get to my favorite show of all time: Orphan Black. I love Orphan Black more than any show I have ever watched in the history of television. It’s fresh! It’s action packed! There is representation of the G, L, B and T on the show! BUT…the lesbian character has been the one to be sick and on the brink of being killed off for the last 2 seasons. Her bisexual gf was shot at the end of last season. We don’t yet know if she will survive, but if history proves right, she will be a goner. (There are so many more shows where this happens, but if I list them all, I will be here all day, and I’ve already spent a few days crafting this!)
And now, The 100. If you have a twitter account, you probably have seen several hashtags trending over the last week, such as #bringlexaback, #lexadeservedbetter, #alyciawantedtostay, #savelexa, etc. If you’ve never watched The 100, you’ve probably been thinking what the heck is all the fuss about this Lexa person?? I will tell you what the fuss is: she is the latest victim in a long string of lesbian characters needlessly killed off. Let me tell you a little about her. This is Lexa (played brilliantly by Alycia Debnam Carey):
And here she is in combat mode:
Lexa was a tough as nails, no holds barred, Commander of clans in the futuristic, post apocalyptic world that is The 100. At first she was just an extra character, but it was established from the beginning that she liked women. We watched as Lexa made tough decisions for her people, and also met Clarke, the leader of the Skaikru (the people who waited out the apocalypse from space), who is also a tough as nails, no holds barred type of chick. The woman empowerment is great in this show. This is Clarke (played brilliantly by Eliza Taylor):
They meet and they form an alliance of sorts.  During season 2, Clarke’s boyfriend dies, and we see her get closer and closer to Lexa. Their chemistry is off the charts! Then this happens:
Lexa initiates the first kiss. It lasts for  several seconds before Clarke says she’s not ready for anyone yet. That was near the end of season 2, and the first glimpse into Clarke being into women. Season 3 begins after a huge betrayal by Lexa. Clarke ends up sleeping with another woman at the beginning of the season, but it seems to have been a one off. Then Clarke and Lexa reunite (it did not go well), but soon they start caring for one another again. The entire season up until last week’s episode had been building tension between the two. Lots of longing glances, chemistry and declarations neither has ever made to anyone. Lexa’s whole philosophy had always been “Jus drein, jus daun”, which means “Blood must have blood”, or in other words, anyone who kills one of my people gets killed. Clarke softened her and got her to see that blood doesn’t always have to have blood. Clarke gets her to see that peace may be better. Lexa also pledges her allegiance to Clarke – which is a HUGE deal for Lexa. Remember, she is the Commander of the clans. She’s not the mushy, I love you type.
Finally, after waiting forever, Clexa happened last week (source: YouTube):
Sadly, mere minutes after this scene, Lexa is shot by a stray bullet and dies. First of all, she is shot in the stomach – which is hardly fatal (let’s hope Delphine will be able to tell us this soon!). Secondly, this is a woman who is strong and powerful – who defeated an enemy by grabbing his sword with her bare hand – and she goes out by a stray bullet? Are you kidding me?! There are so many more honorable ways she could have been written off the show. She could have been killed in battle – as it had seemed she would at certain points. She could have been exiled, or written off in any number of other ways. But no, she is a lesbian, so she is disposable. Let’s just shoot her in the stomach and call it a day! The death scene is very touching (between Clarke and Lexa at least – the other people in the room were doing some sort of ritual), but it is a death scene that is totally unnecessary.
They were just beginning as a couple, something the fandom has waited for since that first kiss (and maybe even before it). There was so much potential for these two to bring peace to the war-torn land. There was so much potential for a lot of things to happen, but no, Lexa needed to become the latest victim in the LGBT trope. Most straight people will disagree with me and say she was just a character like all the other characters, and her sexuality shouldn’t matter, but it does. It matters to that teen girl who is still deeply in the closet. It matters to that 20-something who finally got to see 2 women in love on tv. It matters to me, who got into this show a year ago while I was home with the flu and was ready to quit watching until that first kiss happened. It matters to the hundreds of thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people all over the world.
I get it, sexuality does not define a person. But if the shoe were on the other foot, and there were only 1 or 2 straight characters per show, and they kept getting needlessly killed off – would straight people stay silent? Would they say it doesn’t matter?
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Happy reading!
Do You Hear What I Hear?
After yesterday, when my boss said from her office “There’s another active shooter,” and I wasn’t phased by it- just curious about where- I have been trying to think of words to express how I am feeling about the subject. Thankfully Alice did it for me! Go check out her blog – it’s a very well-written piece that says exactly how I’ve been feeling.
I realize that today everyone will probably be talking about the same thing. I’ve tried to avoid it, play with stuffed Snowmen, etc, but it doesn’t go away. Considering I try hard NOT to watch the highly sensationalized news, it is amazing the kind of stuff you can get from Facebook News. Oh sure, we hear about the Godless peanut butter Christmas trees with their poop shapes. The whole world hears it. It’s on “trending news.” on Facebook. Guess what else is on there? Almost every. single. day. A shooting.
It is so common, it’s on “trending news.” Trending news.
I sent a text to a friend.
Me: There’s been another shooting.
My friend: Where this time?
Isn’t this sad? Listen to our words – actually speak them out loud and listen. “Another shooting.” “”Where this time?” That’s how desensitized we are, because this happens as often as political candidates…
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Enjoy the crazy! 🙂
The Lesbian Next Door 