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My father will never set foot in any home of mine again. He is too old now, and after a week in bed, too fragile to climb the stairs. It's for the best though, and no great loss -- he's not been allowed in my home in years, after all the apartments that no matter how beautiful or clean they were, he told me looked like prisons.
When I was 21, I was sleeping with a married man 19 years my senior. He wanted to start an off-shore electronic options markets and I fantasized about living in the British Virgin Islands with him and having five sons. In those fantasies, I always wore long white billowing dresses and walked on the beach, and there was always a sadness to me: the weight of so many men.
It's funny, how adrenaline takes you. Crime too. It seems so absurd, you process weird things. Fixate on them, and yet ignore others, until they hit you later like a fist. Patty has a pot from Syria in which she keeps a gerber daisy. The most recent one was wilting and I bought her a new one just the other night, so there were two in there. When she came home after the burglary, the wilting one had been removed from the pot and half its petals had been pulled off and vanished. We obsessed on this. We told the cops to dust the flower for fingerprints.
No matter how out you are, you're never really out until you deal with the cops as a gay couple, until you kiss in front of your locksmith. Everyone was kind. No one blinked. Even the robbers did not disturb the framed pictures -- Patty and I, our friends, the one of me as Jack -- on our wall. I was even able to talk to my mother about the blessing of this. It is enough to feel safe.
Patty keeps noting the details while I stare blankly at the mess. They even dumped all the things on the window sill next to the bed on the floor. Tonight we'll try to sort out the bedroom, and I will dig for the watch I am nearly sure was stolen, and Severus' bracelet, which I'm nearly certain wasn't.
The night before the party, I moved my Anubis and my Jizo from those sills into the shelves in our living room. Thank god. I don't know how I would have handled anything happening to the Jizo. Anubis, I imagine, can take care of himself.
About ten years ago I had an abortion, but I cannot remember when. I cannot remember what year it was, what season. I cannot remember the date. And I cannot remember the days of it except in gasps; I was part of the RU486 experimental trials, and I almost died.
He has a name and was a boy and was buried in a shabby corner park that wasn't anything much more than waste ground near where I lived by the BQE. I am not ashamed of it, and I do not, per se regret.
I wonder what it is like to read a story and not feel as if it is about myself. I have never had that experience. It is not arrogance, although people think it such. It is not pride, but rather a life of being desperately, frighteningly permeable. It is beautiful, and I would trade it for nothing. But I do wonder.
Yesterday, I read Get Loved, Make More, Try to Stay Alive by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dsudis, and cried. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with never being a mother or a father, and it might surprise you which has been the greater burden to me. By and large, I do not mind.
When I was pregnant, I knew immediately that I did not wish it to be so, and that it was a terrible idea, both of circumstance and genetics. Of course, since then, we've learned even more about my biological family's health, and the decision seems even more sound. But it also seems a shame. I am something special in the world, and should in a fashion make more. I hope I do so by the way that I live. I hope at least some of my words are tiny seeds.
Patty loves children, as long as they are someone else's. And I love watching her love children (except when Martha Stewart has dressed them in food-shaped Halloween costumes which we find very disturbing). It makes me happy, and without regret, and we have more than one set of friends intent on kids who let me refer to these as yet unborn creatures as our loaner babies.
They will come to New York, and I will take them to the theater. My parents took me to see Camelot when I was five, and it is the map of my soul.
The mystery of the flower was solved an hour ago. The thieves left doors open we normally close. They didn't touch the flower. Little Kitty, who each and every cop that came into our house remarked was not stolen because she was too heavy to lift, ate it. This makes me more happy than I can possibly describe.
We slept on my mother's floor last night, and I told Patty stories, and I called her my tiny turtle (I am her giant fruit), and I thought about how there was a moment, just this one mad moment yesterday after readingdsudis's story, where I thought, we could do this. We could have a baby. We could make the office into a nursery. I'm making enough money now. But it's not our road. I am not Jack Harkness in an mpreg story that doesn't suck.
At thirty-six the body merely demands I consider the matter occasionally, and I don't mind that, it's nice to live a life full of active choices and have a body that obeys. Finally.
To be frank, when I consider children, I feel like I dodged a bullet. One that would be ten now and doesn't really visit as much anymore. I think that's the age when parents start to become embarrassing, and I read different stories now anyway.
You should know among all the rest of this that I have never really been afraid of violence, but then, I have never really experienced violence. Friends of mine have been beaten, and I have had bottles thrown at me, but when it really came down to it, I've always gotten away or stared down (there's an insane story involving a kid with a gun in North Carolina and me at my stupidest) the bullshit. People don't fuck with me.
Our apartment clearly didn't radiate the same, and that's fine, but what I can't shake now is this feeling that everything is precarious, that everything is luck, that thank god we weren't home. I feel fragile and inadequate in the face of violence right now, and to my surprise, I do not mind.
Yesterday my father was moved to a step-down unit in the stroke ward. This is good. But he didn't do well once he was there, complaining of weakness, and I think it is a true thing to say there is no such thing as a minor stroke.
Or a minor burglary.
Or a minor life.
The locksmith, Patty says, was angry on our behalf, and the whole thing is going to cost us $850. We can swing it. It will be tight this month, parents may have to help, but my next paycheck should make it all go away. Those of you who have offered paypal are very kind, but I would instead encourage you to do what we cannot now as much as we'd like because of this -- donate to Soren's fund, or Obama's campaign or No on 8. We'll be all right. Nothing that was stolen was anything we need, but I am really, really pissed about Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.
Meanwhile, we are still going to CT, tomorrow, after I finish my political report. Patty will take her bubble bath and on Saturday we will dance at a ball. Sunday, we'll come home a little early to try to get our bedroom in some damn order.
Much was taken, but it doesn't seem like anything was broken.
As I will always tell anyone who will listen -- the cops, the locksmith, and strangers' children on the subway -- all stories are true. This is my act of faith. And I know none better.
When I was 21, I was sleeping with a married man 19 years my senior. He wanted to start an off-shore electronic options markets and I fantasized about living in the British Virgin Islands with him and having five sons. In those fantasies, I always wore long white billowing dresses and walked on the beach, and there was always a sadness to me: the weight of so many men.
It's funny, how adrenaline takes you. Crime too. It seems so absurd, you process weird things. Fixate on them, and yet ignore others, until they hit you later like a fist. Patty has a pot from Syria in which she keeps a gerber daisy. The most recent one was wilting and I bought her a new one just the other night, so there were two in there. When she came home after the burglary, the wilting one had been removed from the pot and half its petals had been pulled off and vanished. We obsessed on this. We told the cops to dust the flower for fingerprints.
No matter how out you are, you're never really out until you deal with the cops as a gay couple, until you kiss in front of your locksmith. Everyone was kind. No one blinked. Even the robbers did not disturb the framed pictures -- Patty and I, our friends, the one of me as Jack -- on our wall. I was even able to talk to my mother about the blessing of this. It is enough to feel safe.
Patty keeps noting the details while I stare blankly at the mess. They even dumped all the things on the window sill next to the bed on the floor. Tonight we'll try to sort out the bedroom, and I will dig for the watch I am nearly sure was stolen, and Severus' bracelet, which I'm nearly certain wasn't.
The night before the party, I moved my Anubis and my Jizo from those sills into the shelves in our living room. Thank god. I don't know how I would have handled anything happening to the Jizo. Anubis, I imagine, can take care of himself.
About ten years ago I had an abortion, but I cannot remember when. I cannot remember what year it was, what season. I cannot remember the date. And I cannot remember the days of it except in gasps; I was part of the RU486 experimental trials, and I almost died.
He has a name and was a boy and was buried in a shabby corner park that wasn't anything much more than waste ground near where I lived by the BQE. I am not ashamed of it, and I do not, per se regret.
I wonder what it is like to read a story and not feel as if it is about myself. I have never had that experience. It is not arrogance, although people think it such. It is not pride, but rather a life of being desperately, frighteningly permeable. It is beautiful, and I would trade it for nothing. But I do wonder.
Yesterday, I read Get Loved, Make More, Try to Stay Alive by
dsudis, and cried. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with never being a mother or a father, and it might surprise you which has been the greater burden to me. By and large, I do not mind. When I was pregnant, I knew immediately that I did not wish it to be so, and that it was a terrible idea, both of circumstance and genetics. Of course, since then, we've learned even more about my biological family's health, and the decision seems even more sound. But it also seems a shame. I am something special in the world, and should in a fashion make more. I hope I do so by the way that I live. I hope at least some of my words are tiny seeds.
Patty loves children, as long as they are someone else's. And I love watching her love children (except when Martha Stewart has dressed them in food-shaped Halloween costumes which we find very disturbing). It makes me happy, and without regret, and we have more than one set of friends intent on kids who let me refer to these as yet unborn creatures as our loaner babies.
They will come to New York, and I will take them to the theater. My parents took me to see Camelot when I was five, and it is the map of my soul.
The mystery of the flower was solved an hour ago. The thieves left doors open we normally close. They didn't touch the flower. Little Kitty, who each and every cop that came into our house remarked was not stolen because she was too heavy to lift, ate it. This makes me more happy than I can possibly describe.
We slept on my mother's floor last night, and I told Patty stories, and I called her my tiny turtle (I am her giant fruit), and I thought about how there was a moment, just this one mad moment yesterday after reading
dsudis's story, where I thought, we could do this. We could have a baby. We could make the office into a nursery. I'm making enough money now. But it's not our road. I am not Jack Harkness in an mpreg story that doesn't suck.At thirty-six the body merely demands I consider the matter occasionally, and I don't mind that, it's nice to live a life full of active choices and have a body that obeys. Finally.
To be frank, when I consider children, I feel like I dodged a bullet. One that would be ten now and doesn't really visit as much anymore. I think that's the age when parents start to become embarrassing, and I read different stories now anyway.
You should know among all the rest of this that I have never really been afraid of violence, but then, I have never really experienced violence. Friends of mine have been beaten, and I have had bottles thrown at me, but when it really came down to it, I've always gotten away or stared down (there's an insane story involving a kid with a gun in North Carolina and me at my stupidest) the bullshit. People don't fuck with me.
Our apartment clearly didn't radiate the same, and that's fine, but what I can't shake now is this feeling that everything is precarious, that everything is luck, that thank god we weren't home. I feel fragile and inadequate in the face of violence right now, and to my surprise, I do not mind.
Yesterday my father was moved to a step-down unit in the stroke ward. This is good. But he didn't do well once he was there, complaining of weakness, and I think it is a true thing to say there is no such thing as a minor stroke.
Or a minor burglary.
Or a minor life.
The locksmith, Patty says, was angry on our behalf, and the whole thing is going to cost us $850. We can swing it. It will be tight this month, parents may have to help, but my next paycheck should make it all go away. Those of you who have offered paypal are very kind, but I would instead encourage you to do what we cannot now as much as we'd like because of this -- donate to Soren's fund, or Obama's campaign or No on 8. We'll be all right. Nothing that was stolen was anything we need, but I am really, really pissed about Shark Attack 3: Megalodon.
Meanwhile, we are still going to CT, tomorrow, after I finish my political report. Patty will take her bubble bath and on Saturday we will dance at a ball. Sunday, we'll come home a little early to try to get our bedroom in some damn order.
Much was taken, but it doesn't seem like anything was broken.
As I will always tell anyone who will listen -- the cops, the locksmith, and strangers' children on the subway -- all stories are true. This is my act of faith. And I know none better.
