oh and by the way.

i thought it was time to change up the appearance of the blog. this one feels a little more spacious and user-friendly.

hooray 🙂

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back from the border.

and so we just returned from celebrating our 4th anniversary at a faraway place called chinati springs, a natural hot spring chock fulla lithium and other good stuff. it was quite an adventure, and we camped. i am still utterly exhausted from the heat and the driving and the camping and the soaking in healing waters. we had the loveliest time. here are some photos that pretty much are the gist of the experience:

first, there was the cold spring-fed swimming pool, where we spent a lot of time:

and then there was the tomfoolery around said pool:

and then there was some kissy kissy:

more tomfoolery:

a bloodhound named waylon peter jennings:

and lots of desert:

there are hundreds more photos i have yet to process, but there you have it.

i thought happy thoughts toward my uterus, and especially my little ovaries that can. i reminded them that the healing waters were there to inspire a healthy egg this week…

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fertility piñata

¡esta aqui!

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coi

hahahahahaha

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sisterhood of happy pills?

i have a question, aka i’m grasping for straws.

i’m sure that i’m not the only one who decided to ditch antidepressants and mood stabilizers for the sake of getting pregnant? does anyone have a story of how you coped? advice from doctors or midwives?

i’m doing alright. sort of. well. most of the time. but then comes a day like today, in which i am anxious for no reason. anxiety can easily escalate to panic attack. my job entails fixing the problems of angry small business owners, and anxiety does not a problem-solver make.

i’m trying to breathe, relax. bring myself back into perspective. i sneak a cigarette. i close my eyes. i hope it will pass. it does.

at this point, i’ve got the coping skills. i’m a solid girl. but dealing with the tricks my brain plays is hard without chemical help. i can do it. but i’d love some commiseration. got any?

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i have no camera to photograph my lunch today.

…perhaps i will be late in posting and snap my lunch this weekend…

and because i love to post photos on the friday of the photos, i will make my own theme: us.
today is one of our anniversaries. there are three: 5/25/03, 7/18/03, and 12/18/04.

four years ago today, i was a newly-out lesbian in nashville, housesitting for a friend over memorial day weekend. i wasn’t sure if i was ready to begin dating; i’d gone out on a few dates that were as boring as boy-dates. however, like a good little lesbian in the bible belt, i created a profile on a dating site for womens.

meanwhile, in austin, tx, a burnt out h signed up on the same site. she was sick of the incestuous bar scene, and just wanted to make friends with lesbians who hadn’t slept with an ex of hers.

h’s profile happened to be on the “hey! new people in the meatmarket!” of the site’s front page when i logged on that day. a mysterious shadowy photo of a hot girl. i looked at her profile, which said something about wanting to connect with people trying to make a living doing their art. i was a freelance writer at the time, so clearly she was looking to talk to people like me.

i emailed her four years ago today. she took her time in replying, as she wondered why some girl in tennessee was contacting her. she shrugged, finally, and wrote me back.

i’ll spare you the sappy details. but. emails turned into chats turned into phone conversations. the moment i heard her voice, i literally swooned for the first time in my life.

the phone conversations spanned many hours, every day. i was falling for a woman i’d never met.

on july 18, 2003, h boarded a plane to nashville to meet me. h hates to fly. h does not go out on limbs. yet, she flew to me. she kissed me. that was it. i was in love.

i’ll also spare you the hell of separation we experienced for a year and a half.
on december 18, 2004, i finally moved to austin. and here we are, celebrating four years. about to start a fambly.

may i present: us, then and now.

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ow.

this is my first period in a very long time without the aid of antidepressants. pms was a bitch. tears tears tears, a wee bit of panic, and more tears.

now that i’m bleeding, i feel alternately relieved (i.e open floodgates) and angsty. the cramps are the vomit-inducing kind, and i’m really hoping this is the last period i have for a long time.

in other news, we had a bbq yesterday, complete with a piñata!

the piñata was leftover from my birthday party that wasn’t to be back in october. our friend jane had purchased a big hollow papier mache ghost for me, and it’s been sitting forlornly in her apartment for months. luckily for us, the ghost looks like a big happy sperm, and so with a little help of stickers with babies on them, i got to take a bat to an adorable fertility piñata!

and now i have candy.
¡olé!

our vegan/raw foods friend, tamara, brought goji berries. chris, our taiwanese buddhist, food-knowledgeable friend agreed with her that goji berries are good for sexual energy and fertility.

i now have sexy berries.
¡olé!

with the piñata and berries, i will surely get pregnant this month.

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water.

for those of you who don’t know texas, may i present its greatest wonder: hippie hollow.

hh is the only nude beach in texas. h and i went there just the other day, where we swam and basked on rocks like seals. we drank cheap beer out of a cooler, and life could not be more fulfilling.

here is a photo i took last year when we went sailing with friends. we’d dropped anchor at hippie hollow for an evening of skinny dipping, grilling, and sunset watching.

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purge.

my father died when i was 18. heart attack. my first semester at college.

a decade ago september 26.
he was 69.

he left behind a gorgeous 1956 gibson guitar. pristine.

most of my life it had lived under his bed. i was not allowed to touch it because i did not know how to play. that’s how my father reasoned everything: you can get your driver’s license when you can afford a car. you can play a jazz guitar when you learn how to play jazz.

he was classically trained, and i believe he bought the guitar brand new, when he was my age now: 28.

when i was 2, he sliced off the tip of his index finger at work. though his finger healed, it was forever too sensitive to play his guitar. and so my memories of him with the guitar are cryptic at best. my sisters tell of his constant playing when they were small.

my mother gave me the guitar after he died. i carried it with me to nashville, and i learned to play. everytime i opened the case, i smelled my father.

in 2004, i went into the hospital after a breakdown. i had no insurance. i worked at starbux. debt collectors hounded me immediately, and a few months after leaving the hospital, i had to hide my car from the repo man. do you see where this is going?

in order to stave off bankruptcy, i sold the most tangible connection i still had with my father. i sold it to a friend, a very good friend, who happens to be the lead guitarist of a Platinum Selling Popular Band ™. i did so under the expectation to buy it back when times were better. in the meantime, he would treasure it.

my friend spent good money restoring the guitar. he posed with it for an album cover photoshoot, and sent me a framed 5×7. he wrote songs on it, and sent me mp3s. for three years, i have gotten to hear that guitar sing like it was meant to.

a few months ago, he let me know that he had to sell the guitar to pay for an addition to his house. i tried to get the money to buy it back, but we were simultaneously paying rent and a mortgage on a condo we were trying to sell. i decided to let it go. there was no other choice. i reasoned that that my father had blessed me with a guitar that kept me out of bankruptcy (for a while, anyway…but that’s another story…) perhaps it had served its purpose in my life. i tried to believe this.

some circumstances in our lives have changed very recently.
i can buy it back now.
but. my friend has sold the guitar.
it’s gone.

i am about to start my period any minute now. i am more emotional than usual. and this is the first pang of grief over my father’s death that i have experienced sans prozac and mood stabilizers. but i had a moment of hope today; that i would buy back the guitar, and keep it in our family. i would pass it down to our child, give him or her a tangible piece of the grandfather they will never meet.

that dream was dashed as soon as it came.

and so i’m drinking a scotch. having a cigarette. sitting on the porch listening to airplanes. and weeping.

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sisters.

my sister just replied to my email. she’s sort of a lapsed catholic, jaded by religion type, so i was surprised by the God talk. it’s such a relief to hear congratulations instead of wariness or fear.

Congratulations on your big news! I’m happy to hear that you are surrounded
by so many medical professionals. Know that my prayers are with you guys
and I know when the timing is right, God will give you a beautiful, healthy
child. Just please continue to keep yourself happy and healthy.

exhale.

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