Twinkle Little Star

You People Are Keeping Me Up At Night

I am going to write a post regarding disabled kids and therapies/interventions. It is a hard topic, but I'll note right off the bat that I never indicated that children with disabilities should NOT receive therapy. But more thoughts on that later.

Okay, so this email I got a week or so ago, and my attempts to ignore it have not worked. Its not that I think the question is so wrong or that it made me angry or anything like that, it is just a touchy subject. But it is keeping me awake tonight so I guess I'll give it a go.

From "thebeck":

...I have spent the past few days going through your archive. Your weblog is sucking me in and I am enthralled with your story. I may be splitting hairs, but there is one thing you said that I just don't understand and can't get my head around. You talked about a horrible day that was something you just needed to get over in your post about the song "Ordinary World" being your theme song. And I assumed you were referring to your rape incident that you wrote about just a few posts before that. And you said that the song's line about "ours is just a little sorrowed talk" was meant to somehow minimize or diminish the crime. And you should just get over it. This is none of my business, but I'm confused about this. I found your site actually searching for "date rape" because my girlfriend was also raped in college. And she would go ballistic on me if I said that she should just get over it or that it was just a little sorrowed talk compared to the problems of the world. I guess I'm asking, how can two people with similar experiences think about it in such completely opposite ways?

...

Okay, first of all, I am very sorry about what happened to your girlfriend and please extend my sympathies.

And now, second of all, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on for a second while I pry apart the pretzel that is my brain and go back and find out what in God's name I said. (This actually took awhile.) He (I'm going to assume you are a he) is referring to this silly throw away post that you'se all weren't supposed to read that I am so going to take down now.

I say this:

I will continue to use "Ordinary World," which has become my cheesy summer anthem, as my rubber band around my wrist to snap when I get stuck in a forloop and need reminding to just get on with it.

and this:

"... forgiveness is a verb that you have to actively decide to do, it doesn't just come along and fall into your lap by itself via osmosis. Many years ago on a Thursday no less, we had an awful day, and that is what it was, an awful day. We can still remember S while getting on with it. "Ours is just a little sorrowed talk."

In reference to these lyrics:

Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk

in this song:

Ordinary World

Okay, first of all, you are wrong about that being about what you think it is about. "We can still remember S" does not refer at all to the TCGRS (Typical College Girl Rape Scenario) experience that I wrote about. Actually, I can find where I wrote a bit about it after that post, but not previous to it. So either you read my posts backwards or I did write about it before and I can't find it now. Anyway. "S" is something I can't talk about here. Because it involves other people than me, and I was only on the periphery of the "S" situation so it is not my story to tell. But, it does involve a crime and loss and grieving, and that, coupled with my experiences around the TCGRS of my own, leads me to want to tell you these things:

No two people are going to handle being victims of a crime the same way. And there is no wrong way to handle it. If your girlfriend is telling you she can't get over it, she can't forgive, and that it is a big deal...guess what? She's right. You didn't say how long ago her experience occurred. I will tell you that my TCGRS was 19 years ago. My involvement in the "S" situation? Started 29 years ago. That makes a helluva big difference as to where you are in the process of grieving and getting over it. I'm going to guess that her crime took place within the last few years? But even if I'm wrong, who am I to say how anyone else should handle their own situation. Everyone is different.

What I meant by "Ordinary World" being my theme song involves how you can be going along, minding your own business, going down your own life's path with 19 or 29 years distance between you and a traumatic incident. And something can come along and totally blindside you, knocking you off your path and back to where you were  decades ago. It happens  to the best of us. It happened to me, and it happened to my friend, A, last summer. And how you have to drag yourself back to your chosen road, your ordinary world, before it gets all out of hand.  You can call this flashbacks or post traumatic stress or triggering or whatever. But when you have this issue, you have to develop your "drag yourself back to where you want to be" muscle. And this can take years to develop. And you can think you are so far beyond all that crap and guess what? You're not. So, out comes the muscle. Lift a few weights with it and get it back in shape. Have a little rubber-band around your wrist to help you if necessary, a theme song, whatever works, and you will get back there. If your girlfriend has issues like these, she may have not developed this muscle yet. Or she may just handle these things differently than me. Maybe she just is still and lets it all pass through her. Maybe she gets really angry. Maybe she needs to relive it for a while. Whatever. I hope she finds a way to find some kind of effective way to live with it. Whatever way she finds, it is the right one for her.

What I meant by "ours is just a little sorrowed talk" is that we (A and I, not anyone else) are so far removed from it. And we worked hard to get here. So every once in a while, we can have our little sad time flashback thingy, but that's it. We do our thing and then we are done. It is not our lives, it does not define us, it is just something we need to get "tuned-up" every few years or so. We talk to each other, have our little sorrowed talk about it, do a little emotional maintenance, and then we get back to our lives. This is our thing. Doesn't need to be anyone else's. And the whole "holy war and holy need" thing is that our discussions always end up talking about the bigger picture. Why is there so much violence and need in the world? Why is there a need to dominate and hate? Why so much hate against women...the supposed "weaker" sex? What is the definition of evil and is there good in everyone or are some people just evil? And if so, why? How did they get that way? Is it innate or environmental? What can be done to help good win out over evil?

These questions of the ages are where our conversations always seem to end up. And these are issues that are far bigger than what happened to A or what happened to me. We are, unfortunately, just little insignificant dots in the bigger world problem of violence and oppression. Which doesn't mean that our experiences are insignificant, just that unfortunately, we are only two people who have been victimized by crime in a sea of millions and millions throughout history since the dawn of time. For us, and I'm not talking about anyone else here, in a weird way it helps to think that the problem is universal. Not that we, A and myself, were somehow targeted because of something implicit about who we are. That we've done something wrong. It is just saying, look. domination and oppression and violence looms large in our world. This happened to us, but it is so not about us. This is bigger than us and there is nothing we could have done. The only thing we can do now is stay in our chosen "Ordinary World." This is the world of good over evil and kindness over violence. That's all we can do.

Boyfriends of rape victims can either be class A assholes (and if that is your choice, you should probably just gracefully back out) or can be fundamental in recovery. I am EXTREMELY lucky* to have really only ever had experience with the latter type of guy. Even the relationships that didn't work out for whatever reason were actually really cool about this issue. If you want to be one of the good guys and do the right thing; take a step back, learn about rape and its ramifications, get help from a victim's advocate or counselor, do whatever it takes to be supportive. You can click to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network and they can offer information and refer you to confidential hot-lines, counselors and victim's advocates in your area.

*D notes that my extreme luck has more to do with my infamously extreme screening process. I once got picked up for a first date from work. Not five blocks away the guy says that he can't "sleep with a girl without SLEEPING with a girl." I got out of the car at the next intersection, walked back to my office, and announced to my coworker, "date's over!"

The Post About the Menz

aka The post that will probably get me into a lot of trouble.

My sister and I were talking the other day about how she still gets (and I used to get) all of the questions about WHY doesn't she have children? I mean, its not like its the law that every woman should want to have children, right?

But this made me think of a question I still get, especially since having children and the lead up to children. "Why aren't you married?" Or, "When are you going to get married?" Or "Why don't you want to get married?" Just today I had lunch with J, who is in his late 40s and in luuuuv and engaged to get married, despite the Pacific Ocean that separates him and his fiance. I am very happy for him and I really enjoyed spending time with him today. But then the subject of my state of marriage came up and I did one of my tactless blurt outs:

"Men are 90% useless when it comes to relationships."

Yeah. I don't have issues.

But I kinda think I really don't. This is an academic issue for me and I'd like to qualify this statement. First of all, to prevent any confusion, D and I really do have a BIG insurance issue standing in our way. So marriage to him is beside the point. However, and I love D and he is family and I've said this before, I don't know that I'd marry him anyway because I just simply don't want to be married. Our relationship works on many levels, much better than some married couples I'd say. But one of the reasons it works is because we have so many mitigating issues surrounding disability and how we have to live to meet both our needs that it overrides some other big issues. Just for a really simplistic example: D and I don't fight about who does the dishes, who diapers the kids, who makes dinner and who vacuums because he can't do it anyway. It's irrelevant.

I'd like to think that if he could, he would be completely enlightened and he would see us as 100% equal partners and do all this stuff without question. But chances are good that he wouldn't, at least initially. The way he was raised, using his brothers as examples (which is not totally fair, but that's the little I have to go by) they are entrenched in patriarchal thinking. Male privilege. To D's credit, I think if anything, disability has enlightened him to what it feels like to be treated as subhuman, and has opened his mind to learning about the issues women face. So, it is a bit of a catch-22. If he wasn't disabled, he might be a bit of a chauvinist and not treat the partnership equally. But since he is disabled, he understands these issues that are important to me, but many times can't demonstrate it in concrete ways. But one of the things I most love about D is that he doesn't base his ego on stupid testosterone induced male pride and get all hung up about it.

But back to the usefulness of men. What I meant to say, and not that this is much better, but anyway...90% of men are useless when it comes to relationships with women. And of the 90%, there is certainly a continuum of usefulness. Many men of my generation might be in the top 20% of usefulness, while men of the older generation are perhaps lower on the scale, just based on different generational views and upbringing regarding women. So, what I am actually saying, is of the bell curve of men's usefullness in a relationship, my criteria to even bother with trying is only the top 10%. And by top 10%, I don't mean the top ten in traditional ways, like best looks, most money, most prestigious career, whatever. I mean in their usefulness as an equal partner, respectful, loving husband, kind and generous, conscientious, responsible, mature, honest, courageous, etc. Those kind of things.

Okay. I am FAAAAAR from perfect, but I always said that any guy I would marry had to have his shit together at least as much as I do in these areas. And it always seems to me that that only leaves the top 10%. Arrogant, much? I know, I know. But what I'm getting at here is that I don't consider myself to be in the top 10% of women in these areas. I'm probably just average. What I'm getting at is the discrepency between men and women that I don't want to put up with.

I know. I'm digging myself into a deep pit.

But come, come join me. Let me throw you a shovel. I will also qualify this to say that I have many male friends who I quite enjoy and some who I love dearly. I see their humanity and all their good points and things they have to offer. Besides D, of course, I love his dad, despite our differences. I love my first boyfriend, Kory and always will. I love Nik. I love J. But to enter into a lifelong commitment and equal partnership? There are very few guys out there who could pull off the kind of partnership I want. A patriarchy free one, as much as possible at least. Very few men are up to snuff to  make it worth my time and effort. I know that sounds just like the "I don't think all blacks are bad, I have a friend who is black." line. I do understand that it is an unfair statement to generalize all men in this way. And I don't feel like I am doing that so much as observing a social trend that affects both men and women.

In fact, J must be my special special. I must love J so much because I held my tongue and even coughed up a "well, there might be a grain of truth" to his example of that asshat quack John Gray and his stupid Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus drivel. Did you know he isn't even really a doctor? His stuff is misogynistic crap that basically gives men a "biological" excuse to be pigs. Here, for your entertainment, some great John Gray quotes:

"It's such a big deal, 'Well, I didn't get my 20 minutes of clitoral stimulation, so how can you think about penetrating me?' This is all feminist stuff that came in, and women are brainwashed with that. They should have it. I'm not against that. Women should have great sex. It will make better marriages for men."

"Does one spouse owe the other sex? The man goes out and risks his life for this woman. The man works hard for his family. What does she do for him? She has sex for him whenever he wants. That's what sex was. Sex was always for the man. What's this sex for the woman thing?...It's takes 30 minutes [for women] to have a real sexual experience. How do you have sex for 30 minutes every day in a busy life with kids? You don't. But you can do two minutes whenever the man wants."

(From an interview with Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine.)

No wonder his wife left him. My point is that I don't think the trend of men being worthless in relationships is in anyway inherent to the fact that they are men. I don't think it is in their DNA, I don't think men are useless in relationships in any way because they are inferior to females. I recognize that there may be some biological differences between men and women, but more and more research supports that the differences are minor. We are not from different planets, so much as we perhaps just have a different dialect when speaking the same language.

I think that men tend to be useless in relationships because for thousands of years, they had no expectations to live up to. Or very few in regards to accountability to their relationships with women. Women were property and thus could be treated as such. How men treated their property was based entirely on his prerogative, not on her rights or her humanity. Has this gotten better? Absolutely. But thousands of years of patriarchy does not go away overnight. Women have been forced to set their expectations low and men have have been entitled to basically do as they pleased. It is so ingrained into our society that we don't even see it without a trained eye.

So, I call myself a feminist, which for the record, doesn't mean that I feel women are inherently better than men, nor should women rule the earth. Shannon does a remarkable job illustrating my view of feminism in this post. It is about recognizing the humanity of everyone equally while understanding that we are not identical with identical needs. But this won't happen unless men take responsibility for their actions and women expect the respect they deserve.

Here is where people are going to write to me and tell me how mentally screwed I am, or (and I always love these, cuz they prove my point) where someone inevitably comments that I just need a 'good fuckin'. Because of course, when a woman has an opinion that deviates from her requisite dire need of a man, she must just need to get laid.

But here we go: Nothing illustrated the patriarchy and its cruelty to me more than after I was raped. I haven't talked about this much because I really don't want the guy to find me, nor do I want to open up myself to the criticism that always follows rape victims, but here is the story in a very abridged (cuz gawd, I'm sick of this story) and somewhat disguised version:

College. Never heard of the term date or acquaintance rape before. Very, very young. Got a university sponsored ride from a university employed driver (along with several other students) to the airport, two hours away. Talked to the driver the whole trip, a fellow student several years older than me. Nice guy. Perfect gentleman. Went above and beyond the call of duty making sure I got to my flight on time and helped with my bags.

Two months later. At a BYOB frat party with a friend. She wants to make a booze run, we are underage. She asks me if I know anyone at the party who can do it for us. I (barely) know the driver guy. He takes us for a booze run. My friend drinks, leaves with another guy. I don't drink, or drink very little. I'm not drunk. Getting late, driver guy asks to drive me home. Okay. Drives me to his dorm. I don't realize this (cuz I can't see) till we are out of the car and going up the steps. I realize it, I still go in with him. Sit around talking with a bunch of people in this guy's room. One by one, other guys and girls leave. We are left alone. We kiss. I (SUDDENLY!!, cuz I'm dumb) realize that he expects to have sex. I get up and say I don't want to have sex and head for the door. He apologizes. Sweetly. Convinces me that I shouldn't walk home at 4am (the danger!) and he is too tired to drive me home. He convinces me to stay to "just sleep." I stay. I fall asleep. I think I slept about 15 or 20 minutes and am awoken to him pinning me down and the rest I will spare you the details of.

So, my story is typical. You've all heard this type of thing before. We all know a girl who this happened to, right? And we all can see, with our aged wisdom and experience, the 300 things I did wrong to get myself in that situation. And I was naive. But here is the deal: The thing I did wrong, the thing that put me in the most danger, was in believing that my personhood would be respected. I believed, up until the very last second when I was physically overpowered, that I had complete control and autonomy and SAY in what happened to me and what I agreed and did not agree would happen to my body. Obviously, I was mistaken.

What was worse than that night was the reaction I got afterword from the few people I told, both men and women. It ranged anywhere from "how slutty of you" to "well, that's too bad, but what were you thinking???" Basically, the general attitude from everyone was, "well what did you expect when you voluntarily went and stayed in his room?"

Well, wild as this might sound, I expected to be respected. I expected that I would have a say in consenting or not consenting to any and everything that went on that night. When I thought about prosecuting, the main thing I heard about was how I was going to ruin HIS life. Basically, expectations were extremely high for me to monitor my behavior, but nonexistent for him to monitor his. I was supposed to respect my impact on his life but he was not required to respect his impact on mine. Thousands of years of entitlement and low expectations. This had nothing to do with him being from Mars. This was about misogyny and the lack of percieved humanity that I had as a woman. (BTW, I think it was Nik, five years later, who was the first to call bullshit on that line of reasoning and name it 'date rape'. Thats only one of many reasons he rocks.)

Now I do realize that this is an extreme example and most guys are not out there raping people. But even those who won't go so far as rape still carry these attitudes. It is everywhere. Men (and some women) seem to be very confused about rape. This is the litmus test:

At any time, at any moment in any situation, and no matter how she got there, a woman should be able to voluntarily get up and walk out of the room. Even if she consented to sexual actions, even THE sexual action and even if they are in the middle of doing THE sexual action. I'll even spot the guy a ten second reaction time. But at any moment, no matter what she was wearing or what she said or did, she should be able to stop what is happening and walk out of the situation. Now, I'm not saying the decisions she made that got her in the situation were good ones or wise ones or even nice ones, and the guy is free to end the relationship with her if he doesn't like her decisions. However, he is not free to rape her. End of story. Is this so damned hard to figure out?

So, take Kobe Bryan. His situation happened almost 15 years after mine. And I use that situation because it was similar to mine. The girl kinda liked him, she voluntarily went into his room, she might have consented to some sexual acts, and then she did not consent to others and she wanted to stop and to leave and was not allowed. Tons of men, men who I know were not bad men, men who would never rape anyone, said things like, "Well, she should have never gone into his room." Or, "she confused him by consenting to this and not to that." Or, "how was he supposed to stop? Guys get to a point where they can't stop." Or, " She is going to ruin his career." Her identity was leaked numerous times by the press. She received death threats. She was made into a villain. It was "blame the victim" at its worst.

Rape situations sometimes really illustrate how far we haven't come as a society in our ability to see woman as humans rather than objects and property. The standards for men's behavior are so low, and women have to sacrifice SO much sometimes to have a relationship with a man, it is very hard to find truly equal partnerships.

Most of the time, the low standards are much more benign than rape, of course. It is the guy who comes home from work and sits on his ass while the wife makes dinner, cleans up, gives the kid a bath and puts 'em to bed. Or the guy, like the uncles I grew up with, who grouch, "Woman! Get me a beer!" Or it is the husband who agrees to fix the broken stairs a month before the child's birthday party and then doesn't. Suddenly deciding to get his power tools out DURING the party. (True story.) Or another true story: Mom has been working on potty training junior. Asks dad to put off re-tiling the only bathroom for a week until the kid is back in daycare. And he up and rips the bathroom apart while the kid is home all day and has his first day of big boy underpants. Or (another true story, I read too many blogs.) the husband who spends all of his non-working hours playing Second Life on his computer having cyber sex while lying about it to his wife. He completely does not understand why spending his time having virtual sex with a real woman online instead of spending time with his family might be upsetting to his wife. Or the guy who skips his autistic kid's long awaited referral with a specialist to go to a Ferrari convention. Or it is the husbands who think that they work all day while the wife doesn't work. Or gets upset if the wife makes more than him. Or (in phony Ph.D and divorcee John Gray's case) the husband expects the wife to drop everything to give him a quickie but never seems to have time to return the favor. Or calling the type of intimacy that delivers the orgasm for women "foreplay"--an optional precursor to the MAIN EVENT! --the part where the man gets his. I hear about this shit every day and I never understand why women put up with it. Is it just because we have such low standards? Is it the necessity of economics? The exhaustion of raising children alone? How do we get out of the cycle?

There are just a thousand little ways that men don't have to measure up. It is deeply embedded in our society. It is the invisible backpack of entitlement that men carry and women almost don't recognize. And to some extent, men are victims of it as well. I think in the majority of cases, it is entirely unintentional on men's parts. It is for them probably like being a well-intentioned white person who doesn't see their own privilege and sees themselves as being colorblind. Men are often raised this way. It is in every aspect of our culture. Just last week I was lazily folding laundry while watching General Hospital. A successful business woman gives up her career and surrenders to the seduction of a man who is a mob boss (and a 'good guy'!) and can't guarantee her safety, yet won't give up his lifestyle so that his girlfriend and children won't be killed. I know its a soap, but this is still acceptable as romance today? They even had the protest-protest-protest-surrender kiss scene. Un-fucking-believable. Its everywhere.

I also recognize that women aren't perfect and often contribute to this by playing right into it or have a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em attitude". My MIL's generation is full of master manipulators. And I think some women have learned this as a survival technique. If you can't gain power by money or brute strength or position in society, then you manipulate to get what you want. Women are taught from birth how to do this. How to use their bodies, how to trick men into getting what they want. Venus and Mars are all about manipulation. Oprah and Cosmo have articles about how to get your man to do what you want them to do by playing to their ego or sexual desires. Girls are told that the toys they should want at Christmas time are play kitchens and dolls and ironing boards and princess costumes and dolls heads to put make up on. Boys get heavy machinery and superheroes and footballs and toy swords and violent action figures. Toys that focus on power and strength. We are still, in 2007, taught from birth that men are powerful and do important things and women are here to be pretty and clean up after the men and their children.

Although we can't totally reject the patriarchal notions that have been driven into our brains from birth, like we can't really be totally cleansed of the racism we were raised with, we can recognize it for what it is. And here is where the great guys come from. They are out there. They are the men who recognize what is going on and conscientiously work to make sure that they are acting in ways that are not contributing to it. They recognize the humanity and worth of women and don't play stupid Mars/Venus games or act entitled to sex or beauty or a hot dinner waiting or a clean house. They understand the difference between making love and just getting laid. And they understand that the patriarchal bullshit is ingrained in them and will never really go away but they will do their best to try and minimize its impact on their lives and the lives of the women they love. They are out there. I know some of them. They are the 10% that are not useless.

And unfortunately for the most part, they are married. I think they all got scooped up by the woman who were self confident and expected to be treated with respect while girls like me were guilt-tripping ourselves with our misplaced culpability in our own rapes or were being self-conscious about our blindness or our fat or our zits or whatever. I admit it, I was too busy being a victim of the patriarchy (and wallowing in my victim hood) to get one while the gettin was good. Or I got too old and too set in my ways to want to train one in, and the trainable ones are too young for me now.

Yes, now I know I'm an old spinster at 37. And I'm not allowed to like it. But I do. I like my autonomy. I like living my life on my terms. I like not having to play the Mars and Venus game. I like that I can set my own standards as to my personality and standards and appearance and not have to play into guy expectations. It seems like you either have to compromise your standards or choose to be single. I like my choice.

Yes, I know. My standards are too high. I hear this all the time. My standards are too high if I want an equal relationship with a guy who understands and supports feminism and human rights. If I want a guy who not only refrains from saying "I'd hit that" but who doesn't cheer along when his buddies say it. If I want a guy who is not insecure around a smart or successful woman who doesn't feel like her main job is to feed her husband's ego. If I want a guy who can sit down with me and negotiate a conflict in a direct and amenable way for both of us and not let his entitlement or ego get involved. I know that no one is perfect, but I would want a guy that at least understands what an equal relationship is and does his best to strive for it.

I really don't feel like this is sour grapes, this isn't an uptight woman that needs to get laid. I can get laid anytime I want, as can most women, so I never understood that whole line of thought. This isn't a bitter old maid that is making excuses for not having a husband or a lesbian wanna-be or whatever else I get accused of. I do not hate men. I understand to the extent that I can that they are under their side of the patriarchal pressure as well and it can be hard to impossible to see above that. I see the good in men. I enjoy their company. I have many that I love and admire and even lust after a few (Okay, that guy Logan? On General Hospital? He is the only reason I watch that intrepid drivel. That's pure lust, I admit it.) I can see the good in men even though I can also recognize the weaknesses. They are human and deserve the same acceptance and level of respect as women. They deserve to be treated individually and not as a demographic, which admittedly I have failed to do here. I'm extremely lucky to have a long time relationship with a man who, if not always practices equality, understands it and is willing to listen and learn about my frustrations.  And who sees me as a fellow human above all else and who tries to contribute what he can to the extent that he can. I have two boys who I love unconditionally and who have in them both the influence of their father and the DNA of another man who I appreciate. I have a father, who although far from perfect in many respects, is responsible and was accepting of my mom as (almost) equal partner. He's about 100% times better than many other men from his generation.  I have NIk who is good-hearted and funny and forgiving and smart and tough. And J who is sensitive and witty and almost precious in his rose-colored lack of awareness of all things unjust in the world. I'm not lacking for men in my life. Men who show me their goodness and kindness on a day-to-day basis. Those guys? Top 25 to top 15, at least. ; )

But marriage? The whole institution bugs me. I'm not compromising. I'm opting out, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Two Questions, Unrelated

A few of you know that I grew up in the Omaha/Council Bluffs Metro Area and have inquired about the Westroads Mall shooting. My first reaction is that I have a cousin who I thought worked there, and I hoped he was alright. But I since found out that he doesn't work there anymore. It doesn't appear that I know any of the victims (although D's aunt knows the landlord of the killer, so there is always six degrees, I guess.)

My second reaction is the memory of the sheer amount of clock hours, the embarrassing number of weekends of my life I spent at that mall growing up. Countless. I can still remember where every store was. I still remember the time I barfed in Seifert's and then took about 3 years before I entered that store again. I remember which of my high school friends worked there and where. The route I took around and around that mall just hanging out. So it is a bit surreal.

But my third reaction, the strongest, is sadness that these mass killings and seemingly random acts of violence by young men are becoming more and more common and that no place; no one is safe. And that now Westroads will have extra security guards in place and maybe metal detectors and employee security trainings and extra police response training and all that. And how that is so not the right way to deal with this. It is like placing all kinds of parachutes and netting and ambulances and books about how to respond to the medical needs of people who have fallen a deadly distance at the bottom of the cliff while completely ignoring the kids at the top who are running towards it.

Recently, in Oregon, a man committed suicide after he wandered for three days seeking help because he lost all of his belongings on a bus and had no money or I.D. or anything. He most likely had a mental illness. And he went to the Salvation Army and the Emergency Room and the Sheriffs office and the homeless shelter and the county welfare office. None of them gave him any more help than a coat or a meal and sent him on his way. So after wandering for three days, he put himself in front of a train and was killed.

I don't know this Omaha kid's story, I don't know whether he asked for help or what happened. But I do know that many non-profits and government agencies do not really help anyone but themselves. They all provide "education and referral" which is code for passing the buck to a different agency. I know that Nebraskan's, if they are like every one else in the country, will throw up their hands and say, "there were no definitive warning signs! We could not possibly imagine that this guy would walk into a mall and start shooting!" And then they will up security and that will be that. But there are ALWAYS warning signs. I'm not blaming anyone for what happened, but I do know that the number one warning sign is when people are regarded as throwaways. Hopeless, helpless, valueless people who are not worth dealing with and are brushed aside as being less than human. That is the biggest warning sign of all. The person you don't want to deal with and no one else does either? The one you don't want to touch? That is the one who will do something like this.

Girls withdrawal and go inside themselves and become anorexic or do drugs or become strippers or prostitutes and disassociate from those who have disassociated from them. Boys? Much more likely to become violent. And why wouldn't they? We train our boys practically from birth to become violent. Read this interview by Army dude/FBI trainer/author Dave Grossman if you have boys. Chilling.

But for the people who are dealing with this loss right now, I extend my sympathies. Hopefully we as a society can come up with a better plan than extra security at Westroads Mall.

*********************************************************************

Okay, now for something totally unrelated. I've been asked about what my deal is with YouTube and whether I can even see/hear it or not.

I really can't see YouTube videos that well. I go to that site a lot, though because it is kind of like the poor man's iTunes. I don't have an mp3 player. I don't really even have a stereo. I can listen to CDs on my computer or by using the DVD player, but most of my CDs are not unpacked and I don't even know where they are. It is easier to just do a you tube search when I want to hear something.

Can I hear music? Yeah, kinda. I can hear it best with headphones. But I mostly hear the bass/rhythm lines. I've actually become kind of a fan of the bass (You Go! John Taylor!) because of that. I never paid much attention before. But, here is the deal. And why everything I have posted here is such embarrassingly old, old school. New music that I am unfamiliar with just sounds mostly like the rhythm section. When I listen to old familiar music? My brain fills it all in. It seriously sounds like the whole song in my head to me. I know that if I really stop and concentrate, I'm only hearing the rhythm section. But my brain just compensates and it integrates perfectly. Hard to explain. The further back the song from my youth, the better this works. Songs from my childhood and early teen years are just ingrained so much that give me a little hint of the song and I hear the whole damned song just like it was coming through the headphones.

I have thought a lot recently about how I need to bring new music in for the kids sake. They do have a small radio/cd player in their room and they listen to kid music like putumayo and raffi and stupid annoying kid songs and stuff. They also listen to a lot of classical. But I have thought about trying to make a better effort to expose them to new and different kinds of music. My buddy Scalzi was generous enough to ask his readers on my behalf for suggestions for appropriate music for kids that is not specifically kid music. I got literally hundreds of suggestions that I am still sorting through. But I should have asked you all as well for suggestions. So go ahead and bring 'em on if you have some.

Another reason I like Youtube is because I like live performances better than most studio recordings. I always have. In skating there is a saying that you are either 20% better or 20% worse in competition that you are in practice. (Me? 20% worse, btw.) I think musicians are the same way. YouTube has some great live stuff that you just can't find on itunes. It has a ton of sucky stuff, too. But it is fairly easy to sift through it.

Take another old, old song like Fleetwood Mac's "Silver Springs" for example. The studio version is just a sweet little teenage girl break-up song. Its okay. But nothing all that wonderful. Now take this live version. The emotion in it (and the irony that the person she threatens to haunt forever with the sound of her voice is right there next to her--30 years later--still stuck listening to the sound of her voice, heh) makes it a whole different song on a whole different level.

I don't know, I'm a You Tube Junky. I put them up here because I used to have a section of my old website that was called "current song in my head" and it is interesting to go back and see where my psyche was at that exact moment. The current song in my head section is a better snapshot of that than anything I probably wrote. I don't expect 99%, if any, of you to actually click through the videos. I will sometimes watch other people's videos but often don't. Who has the time? But if you want to, fine. If you don't, doesn't bother me a bit. I guess I just have it there to remind myself of my state of mind at the time. Or of songs that I can fill in with my brain.

1976

Found in the whole garage sale super cleanathon. This is my kindergarten class pic. Groovy glasses, eh?

My Favorite Date

Today was a bit of a bizarre day in which I visited the me of five or seven years ago and it stood in sharp contrast with the me of today.

And/Or.

My birthday is Monday. I'll be 37. Maybe I just feel old.

Since I've become a parent, and especially in the last few weeks, I have felt maxed out. I'm filled to capacity with obligations, work, facts to keep straight in my head, problems to solve. I have no reserve. Nearly every minute of my time is scheduled. I don't know if it is age or overwork, but I forget things more lately. I let things go. I unintentionally blow people off. I forget what I'm doing and get almost panicky at how behind I get.

I had a lunch date with a guy that I haven't really seen in 5 years today. It wasn't a Date with a capital D and we've never dated and never will date. It is probably the weirdest relationship I have with anyone. We have nothing in common. He is, I think, 15 years older than me, we met through skating many years ago. He has no interest in kids, dogs, cats, or social justice and has spent the last 10 or so years doing nothing but day trading. All of which is contraindicated to having a relationship with me. He is not unattractive, but neither of us are hugely attracted to each other. But he is funny, and witty, and smart and a genuinely good person. We email each other every few months and never spend any time together even though we live relatively close to each other. I'm not sure why I keep in touch with him except that I sorta have a special thing for him. Not really THAT kind of special thing. Just an affection for him. D says we are just interested in each other because we don't know anyone else like each other. Could be. He is conservative (not politically, but otherwise) and I think comes from old money and sort of uptight and anal. I am radically liberal on almost all levels and come from not really any moneyand am flakey and laid back. Out of left field, I dumped a load of stressful crap on him a couple of weeks ago, and he responded by inviting me to lunch.

So, here is where my day of contrasts with the old and new me started. The old me had all of her shit together. The new me had no laundry done and had totally forgotten to get any cash for either the lunch or the babysitter. The old me would have paid some attention to fashion and hair and makeup. The new me got baby poop on the first shirt I had on, and due to lack of laundry, my choices became either old scruffy T-shirts or another shirt that required me to think of 14 different ways to corral my breasts that have since run rampant post pregnancy. (I'm probably one of the few women in America that would rather have smaller boobs. They got in the way of everything I thought was cool. Ballet, skating, swimming, cute demi-bras...). The old me would have had cute shoes and accessories. The new me had two Elmo and Cookie monster band-aids on a blister on my heel and a piece of D's duoderm tape on a hole in my shoe. The old me would have done...something...with my hair. The new me, ponytail all the way.

But it is more than cosmetic. I officially have a bad case of mom brain. I used to be able to talk politics. Today, I couldn't come up with a single coherent sentence. After the 2004 elections, which were right before my kids were born, I kind of burnt out from disappointment and disgust. I'll get back into it, but lately I've only had time to skim the headlines and read only the niches that interest me. Which lately have been disability politics, kid/educational politics and rape politics (mostly thanks to my fangirl crush on Twisty Faster). None of which are easy, breezy lunch topics. I told D not to let me loose on the public again without giving me a full CNN headline news style briefing. I hate being dumb about stuff like that. But who has the time? In these early days of momhood, when the job is so incredibly time consuming and intense, I feel a little--a lot--cut off from the world.

Then there is the disability contrast. I am more disabled today than I was 7 years ago. It is strange to see people that you haven't seen for a while and remember how you used to function. They still think you function the old way, and you don't. And you forget that they don't know and they, well, even if you tell them, they just don't know. D and I have talked about how much better friendships and relationships are with people we've met post disability. It is not impossible, but difficult to bring the old friends who knew you before along for the journey. With D, it is easier in a way because he has an exact BC/AD to his disability. Mine is slower and more subtle. And also harder to understand. D and I are so spoilt by having our 13 year relationship together where we know and can anticipate each other's needs. I can give D a sideways glance if I can't hear someone and he is right there to facilitate communication. As for him, I know exactly when he can carry something and when he can't. When he is on too many drugs to function and when he is fine. I don't expect anyone else to be able to do this. It takes time and effort to get to know what I need. It isn't something I can just tell you in five minutes or less how to accommodate my every need. So, when you see people who knew you when, playing by the old rules, it reminds you of how you used to be.

I remember going to parties and even bars and being able to communicate and participate. I remember sitting in a busy food court overlooking the skating rink and communicating with my friend and a few other skaters with little problems. Today, just me and him, I struggled every minute of the whole conversation. Exhausting. Not his fault, not my fault, just the way it is. I have a lot of online friends who are great. But I've come to realize that if I am going to be able to socialize with people in real life, I'm going to have to reach out more to the deaf community. They are fast becoming my main option. As for nondisabled people, I think I can have relationships with them, but they are going to have to put forth effort and be in it for the long haul, and be committed to learning how to help me out and let go of some of the social norms they are used to, like phone calls or going out to lunch and just come over and sit in my goddamned house and talk to me. Either that, or be willing to assist in my public communication like D does. I can go out in public, mind you, but it is too exhausting to do a whole lot of without someone who can sort of watch my back in the communication and vision department.

But despite my fog brain about politics and my lousy listening skills, J is a nice guy and it was an okay time and there you go. I probably won't see him for another 5 years. He dropped me off at my request in my old neighborhood where D and I used to live together. I had some errands to run, and it was weird to do it without the kids. In that neighborhood, I have put on many miles with my guide dog. I walked to many of our old places using our same old routes. I even stopped by our old apartment complex. I sat in the playground of the yard I had taken her several times a day and we, even the landlords, called it "Mara's Yard." Things were not always easy then either, but they sure were simple compared to life now.

Then, I stopped and bought food (I finally got cash), for my second date of the day, with D. I was supposed to meet him and help him mail a package, but he didn't have it ready in time so I just stopped by on the way home. Even then, deja vu to the way it used to be. Me, him, takeout food and the cats. No kids. Relaxed, full of funny banter, no hearing issues. He knows when things need to be repeated and when they don't. I don't have to work hard to communicate with him. We don't spend a lot of time together anymore without the kids. Well, any. We have really struggled at times since the kids have been born. Mostly because of the "BIG FAT LIE ABOUT THE FOOT" thing, which pissed me off to no end and took me a loooong time to get over. And also struggling with him about attendant issues, where he seems to have several stories going at once depending on who the audience is. These are things we are still trying to work through, but we are committed to parenting the kids together and working through our problems. Still, it was nice to have some time alone with him and remember how it was when it was just two of us.

Despite my reminiscing about the past when life was easy, and child-free, and my body functioned better, it was my third date of the day that was my favorite. I got home just in time to get the kids up from naps, and since I already ate with both J and D in a three hour period, I was stuffed and so just fixed the kids an easy dinner of chicken nuggets and fruit. My boys and I just hung out. I had missed them all day, even though I know I needed a break from them. We read books and talked about the day and made tents in the couch and practiced our signs and all the other little 2 year old things we do. They were in good spirits and we had a laid back evening.

I'm glad I had 15 years of adulthood to screw around and go to college and date and be single and read the paper and do my hair. I'm glad I skated and had a career (that I haven't totally retired from) and met J and got to hear music and see the ocean. I sometimes get sad that I'm not that person anymore. But I like the new opportunities that have opened up for me now. Without loosing my hearing, I would have never learned sign and taught the kids to sign and met some of the people I know who sign. Without biting the bullet and having kids, I wouldn't get to go swimming with them and sliding with them and running with them and dancing with them. Without chucking my career to essentially be a SAHM, I would never have felt so useful. Without choosing singlemomhood, I would never have had so many days filled with so much stuff that I can't keep track of it all. Much better than the single days of notmuchtodoaboutnothing.

There is stuff from the old me that I will probably find again eventually. Maybe I will find time to read a newspaper and know who Bill Richardson is. Maybe I will resurrect some sort of career. Maybe I will get cochlear implants. Maybe I will find a curling iron again. Maybe I will proofread my blog. I'll keep my social Marxist tendencies. I'll even keep J. But I like my life now how it is. I'm glad my life turned a corner and I'm not still on that same, straight path. I'm glad I get to come home to a house and a family and a life that I did my best to create for myself.

Reader Request: Guide Dogs

I have a couple of new reader requests. One is about DEATH! which I will write about but I need to set aside some time for it. This much cheerier one from Roxanne is about guide dogs and I'm digging it out of the archives of my old blog. The weird thing about my life now is that I had this weird year in 2004 where everything changed. My mom died (in late 2003 actually), I lost my job, I moved, I got pregnant, and my dog died. So everyone pre 2004 totally associated me as a guide dog user and it was a huge part of my identity. Now, lots of people that I deal with day to day did not know me as a guide dog user. I'm just this mom of twins. I now have tentative plans to get a second guide dog when the kids are about three and a half in the summer of 2008. This will require a month of training away from my home and kids. I hope she doesn't mind me blabbing this, but the fabulous Shannon has courageously volunteered to come out and help with the childcare during that time, in which we will both start our master plan to get my guys and her daughter and future child matchmade together so that we can all have a fantabulous wedding which will probably take place in Vancouver, B.C. Because they rock in Vancouver, B.C.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, guide dogs. O.K. I wrote this about three years ago, so it may seem a little out of context, but you'll get the basic gist of it, I think. Plus I added pictures now, which are also completely out of context. I was a lot more anonymous on the old blog, using pseudonyms for everything, whereas now I just don't care anymore. Mara was MGQ, which stood for Mara Gene Quagmeier. Nik was Sven.

It was ten years ago today that I went off to guide dog school in Smithtown, New York at Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind. Two days later, on June 9th, I met MGQ. If you are wondering why even my dog goes by initials on this site, it is because I have a general policy of not telling the public my dog's name. Why? Because you try rushing to a final or a meeting with a guide dog while everyone is yelling, "Hi! Spot! Here Spot! Hey Spot!" Your straight shot to class ends up being a zig zag between friendly distant acquaintances. (It takes approximately 8.7 seconds for an entire campus/workplace/public building to know your dog's name after you've told just one person. This is tested scientific fact.) So why three initials? Because my dog has developed a first, middle and last name. Her first name was given to her by her sponsor, the folks that put up at least 5 of the 20 grand to get us both trained. My understanding is that her name was the name of the grandmother of the woman who founded Cinnabon, who was her sponsor. My friend MRY coined her middle name G. It has come in handy when I really need her to know I'm serious about something. "Siddown," I might say at a bus stop when it really doesn't matter that she's up loafing around. "M-G! siTTT dowNN!" I'll whisper in a job interview. The middle name and the hard consonants at the end of each word lets her know that I'm not in the mood for crap.

Me, a friend, and Mara at the Lincoln Memorial during an NFB Congressional Lobby trip.

Mara does Washington. She has been in the House Chamber as well as many Congressional offices including that of the Senate Majority Leader.

The Q, which is rarely used, and the whole MGQ has such a funny cadence to it, is is reserved for times when she is off leash outdoors and fixated on a pile of goose poop or some other natural element of disgust and she refuses to come. "M! G! Q! RIGHT! NOW!" will usually break her from her lovetrance with whatever crap she's found to roll around in. The Q came from a six-year-old student of mine, who drew a picture of her and wrote M___Q___ on the top of the page. Q is a character from the children's show "Eureka's Castle." Cool show by the way, in that I-have-to-sit-here-with-these-kids-and-watch-Nickelodeon-so-at-least-its-not-Teletubbies kind of way.

Mara's graduation from college. I did the papers, but she did sit through her share of boring lectures.

So the guide dog school doesn't teach you these tricks. And what the guide dog school did teach me, I have mostly either incorporated into my subconsience or totally forgotten. I hated almost every second of guide dog school. I dread returning. Its not that I don't appreciate what they've done for me, but as they say, some birds shouldn't be locked up in a cage. And being locked up in a cage is pretty much what guide dog school felt like. It was only for a month. And they had such total control over everything you did and every second of your time that I about went insane. But it wasn't all bad. I did get MGQ out of it, so it was worth it. I remember it all as if it were yesterday...

(Wayne and Garth Hands here) Do-dit-dit-doot. Do-dit-dit-doot. Do-dit-dit-doot...

I, like the general public, expected guide dogs to be perfectly behaved, somber animals. I had been at the school for two days and had yet to see a dog. On this day I was sitting in someone else's dorm room, waiting for my instructor to bring me my dog. They had put each of the ten students in a separate room and were bringing the dogs into each student one by one. I didn't know if I would be first or last, so I just sat there waiting.

And waiting...

And waiting...

Finally, the door opened and a big yellow dog came bounding into the room. My instructor barely even came in, he just told me to get to know her for a while and he'd be back to get me later. There was a stack of clean white towels folding on this girl's bed. M ran around, grabbed a towel and started shaking her head with it in her mouth and bounding around the room with it. "Oh, shit!" I thought. "She's crazy! She's not trained! I won't get to keep her! What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" Every once in a while she would come over and shove her head on my lap and shake her tail so hard that her whole back half was going back and forth. She was one damned happy dog. They hadn't given us any instruction yet on how to work with the dogs. But I was so worried the instructor would come back and be mad that she had towels in her mouth. I told her, "Sit!" And instantly, she sat and spit out the towel. I thought that was so cool. When my instructor came back, I proudly told him that she had listened to me and he said, "You aren't allowed to give her commands when you don't know how to do it yet!" (This is what guide dog school was like. EVERYTHING was a drawn out procedure that we needed minute, detailed, instruction on. Yeah, I already know that I'm not good with authority, Leslie.)

With D and I at the end of the Oregon Trail. Mara has traveled from the beginning of Lewis and Clark's explorations to the end with D and I.

My instructor said that I was going to walk with my dog down the hallway to the living room and sit in a chair. Easy enough, I thought, that's only about ten meters away.

It took me 20 minutes to walk those ten meters. With my dog on leash, he made me stop at every doorway, go back and repeat any steps we didn't do perfectly, any time my dog even looked sideways we had to start over. When I got to my chair, I sat there and heard every other student go through the same painstaking process. I thought. I will never leave this chair again.

After a few days of indoor leash work, they started taking us out to the town and later into New York City. I remember the first time I walked down the sidewalk with M in harness. You can feel a lot more of what your dog is going to do in harness than just with the leash. You can feel every head turn and shoulder movement. Compared to a white cane, its like going from typewriter to computer.

There were so many procedures we were supposed to be doing. Which foot to put your weight on, which foot to step with after stopping. Which direction to turn when making a U-turn. How to go through a revolving door, how to push a shopping cart with the dog, how to carry luggage, how to walk on a double-edge subway platform. There was a procedure for everything. Some you lose the second you leave the school, some you lose months later, and some you keep and don't even realize you kept them.

Mara and I were asked to be in a modeling shoot for a photography studio. There were in harness pics too, but I can't find them.

They would put obstacles in our way on purpose. They would even drive cars around and try to run over us. You never knew when you were crossing a street and you would hear a car screeching around the corner to a stop and then an instructor would yell at you out of the window. I knew that I would be friends for life with classmate, Sven when they put a big trashcan in the middle of the sidewalk. The dog was supposed to stop at the obstacle and you were supposed to say, "Find the Way!" and then your dog would calculate if it was better to go around away from the street (the default) or towards the street. When Sven's dog stopped at the trash can, Sven reached out to see what the obstacle was. When his hand landed on an empty trash can, Sven picked it up and just threw it into the people's yard and kept right on walking. I was behind him, getting a play-by-play from my instructor who was all moaning and groaning in annoyance with him. The instructor had a strong Boston accent. "Awww, man! He just thwew that twash can wight on those people's poach!" I was laughing my ass off.

I later came to blows with the school's training staff when I went off on my own to a Japanese Garden that was built on campus, donated specifically for blind students. It had specific flora with distinct textures and smells and the trails were tactile marked. The problem was, students could only leave the residence hall with a staff person, but there was never a staff person available to take you anywhere. I was always buggy in the residence hall, and here is this garden especially made for blind people just two easy blocks away that blind people can't even use without supervision. While I was there, it was only being used for fund raising events. So one night, I left M safe in my room, and went out via cane. I told the staff person on call to babysit us that night that I was going...and ran out the door before she could say anything. I literally ran to this garden, cane tapping like mad. I was only there a few minutes when two staff came chasing after me. I had broken out! We had a fight...and eventually I won. After agreeing to allow a staff person to show me around, I gained the right for myself and my fellow students to go there by ourselves. Sven, me, and another student Luc, hung out there a lot together in the evenings to get away from everything and reclaim just a little piece of our independence. I still feel good about that, and hope many other blind students got to get away for a little bit on their own and go to that forbidden garden that was supposed to be made for them.

My guide dog graduating class. I am the one with severe hair issues at the right end. Nik is in the middle with the jeans and cap.

So finally we graduated from guide dog school and M's puppy walkers (the people who raised her the first year) came to a little reception and gave me lots of little gifts. Then, I nervously took her on the plane and took her home. I remember she shook on the plane. After going on the plane with me now probably over 100 times, that was the only time she ever shook. When I got home, I realized how much of what they teach you didn't apply to my life. I lived in an apartment where there were no sidewalks. The only way out was to meander through a series of small parking lots. By cane I could do this by following the speed bumps and estimating angles. But M was uncomfortable without a sidewalk or roadside to follow. Then, I would walk to school and to my job by taking a series of shortcuts that meant I had to walk across open fields. M was never taught to guide through an open space. But it would add a mile or so to my already two mile walk to class to not take shortcuts, so I had to teach her to guide across open spaces. But she learned quickly, and I spent a great deal of time teaching her new routes and naming them new words. I would teach her how to get to my classes using left/right but then when we got there, I would name the class. Then I could just tell her, "Let's go to Assessment!" Yup, Assessment was in my dog's vocabulary. Although to her it meant a building, not processes of evaluation. Once I wrote down all the words she knew, and it was over 80. (She now also knows about 20 words in sign language. Convenient for when you don't want to interrupt someone by giving your dog commands.)

My dog barfed for the first three months that I had her. I don't know why. Nerves? Change in water or climate? I don't know. But name a public place in Lincoln, Nebraska and my dog has probably barfed there. The capital building, the movie theatre on 17th and R street, Claire's boutique in Gateway Mall, Target on 48th and O, The Post and Nickel, the Zoo Bar Downtown, several classrooms at the University of Nebraska, McPhee Elementary School, Bob Devany Sports Center, and a random StarTran bus or two. It eased up after a while, but man is it an experience to have to go tell the manager that you are very sorry, but your guide dog just hurled in isle nine.

At the Broadmoore Hotel in Colorado during one of our Craig Hospital trips.

She did stop barfing, but she does have one weird problem that never went away. Whenever she is in a place that either has a lot of incense, indian or asian smells, she shits. I don't know what it is. But take my dog into Gifts from Afar and she has a little fit where she starts foaming at the mouth and turning in circles and the poop just drops right out of her. I don't know if it is an allergic reaction or what, but my days of shopping in cute little ethnic stored ended when I got M. The only other time she ever had an accident in public was one time in the Chicago O'hare airport. She had been on the plane an exceptionally long time due to delays, and we were running to catch my connection through that long tunnel with the epileptic disco fever lights on the ceiling, and she just stopped mid run and took a crap. And God forgive me, but I had been stuck in airports and on planes for too long in a two day period; I just kept running. Sorry, O'hare janitor, that shit you had to clean up in 1999 was my fault.

Once I served on a speaker's bureau and got roped in to being on a panel to talk about disabilities and sexuality for a college human sexuality class. It was me, a person with mental retardation, a para and a quad. I didn't have much to say because, hey turn the lights out next time if you want to know what it's like to have sex when you're blind. Not too much difference? So I talked a little about dating. The pretty good looking para guy's message was basically "paras don't get laid." Which was funny because the not so attractive high level quad was doing his dissertation on sexuality among wheelchair users and had actually made a videotape of him getting laid. (All for research, don'tcha know.) So he played excerpts of his tape for the class. I couldn't see the tape, but I could hear it, and you heard the usual, er, moans of pleasure. So my dog, who had been peacefully resting underneath my chair, suddenly jumps up, looks straight at the video, and starts howling at the screen. Everyone is trying to be so sensitive and mature while watching this quadriplegic, who is right in front of them, have sex on TV, and my dog is whining and howling at him. I told her to be quiet and I started to say, "I'm sorry," but then I just burst out laughing, and then everyone else did, too.

Living in D's hospital room for days on end at Craig Hospital.

But my dog has earned a few mistakes. She has potentially saved my life on numerous occasions. I can still cross streets by using traffic patterns, but my main problem in crossing streets is the right-turn-on-red car that speeds by without looking for pedestrians. There have been several times when M has literally pushed me out of the way of one of these cars. Then, she literally did save my life when we were both hit by a hit and run driver. We were walking down the sidewalk and were waiting to cross a driveway of a Walmart. We stopped, a car pulled up to exit the driveway and stopped, and then we went forward. I can't see into people's cars, so I can't see what they are looking at. Many times, cars stop for me and wait, even if they could have gone, or would have had I been sighted. That is what I thought this car was doing. But it was really just looking the other way, trying to find a space in the oncoming traffic of a busy street so it could cross over into the far lane. When I was right in front of the car, it quickly pulled forward, hitting M first and then me. M went right under the car, and I fell into the busy street, with my head landing underneath the front bumper. I was disoriented but knew I had to move and get out of the street. Laying down under a car in a busy street with cars screeching around you is not a fun place to be. I didn't have M's harness, anymore. M almost instantly butted her shoulder into me and pushed us both out from under the car, then I grabbed her collar and jumped up and she pulled me almost instantly to the sidewalk. Her fast orientation, which was way faster than my senses would have oriented me to what I needed to do, got me out of that street and probably saved me from getting hit by one of the oncoming cars. The car was courteous enough to stop long enough for my dog and I to get out from under it, then it sped off, never to be found. I had bloody knees and elbows, a bruise on my head, and achy muscles for two days afterward, but was not seriously hurt. M had a scraped elbow as well, but seemed fine.

Her spot in one of my classrooms I taught in. She laid on that same blanket in all my workplaces for over ten years.

M does a lot of little things for me that are hard to explain and were not taught at guide dog school. She extends me senses and gives me information about the environment around me. Because I am also deaf, I don't always hear when a person is walking behind me or starts talking to me on the bus. I don't always know if something is happening down the street like a traffic accident or something. I don't always know if the person walking right up to me is someone I know or a stranger. I can read M's reactions to the world around her and that gives me information. She can't always tell me who or what is going on around me, but she tells me that something is and which direction, whether it is an ok thing, a strange thing, or a dangerous thing, and then I can investigate further if I need to. She lets me know who is a stranger and who is a friend from far away, just based on her reaction. (Another reason blind people don't let everybody pet their dog is so the dog's friends and the owner's friends are one and the same. If I let her, M would be best buds with every smelly homeless guy on the train. She has an affection for smelly people that I don't share with her).

Pals with our Kansas bunny, Pheobe.

People say with great reverence, "A guide dog is not a pet. You have such a special relationship." Well, yeah and no. I don't like it when people get all sappy-romantic about my guide dog and act like its this magical, mystical thing that only Angels in Heaven can create. A relationship with a guide dog is different from that of a pet dog for many practical reasons. First of all, dogs are just living things that are less intelligent than humans, but still have a degree of intelligence. Most people don't have eight hours a day for two years to educate their dog into reaching its full potential. My dog had that intensive education. So my dog has a Ph.D. to most dogs who have never went to preschool. There is going to be a difference, but it isn't that my dog is magical or special. She's just educated. Going along with that, my dog gets to experience everything people do, whereas most dogs are limited to their houses and parks. My dog knows the routine in a restaurant, the grocery store, the airport because she has done it a thousand times. She has a context to work with that other dogs don't have. So, if you took two equally intelligent people and gave one a Harvard education and let him travel the world and gave the other one no education ( or three weeks of preschool) and he had to stay in his house and yard his whole life, there is going to be a big difference in their ability to understand and adapt to the world around them. M is a purebred lab and had good breeding and all that, but she just has experiences that most dogs don't have. That is why she acts different, she is not any more mystical or special or magical than any dog. Also, she gets to stay around me 24 hours a day. The longest M and I have been apart has been 5 days, when I was in the hospital. We are apart a few hours here and there, but in ten years, that is it. Most people don't even spend that much time with their own children in ten years. When you are with someone 24 hours a day, (she even stays in the bathroom when I take a shower), you build an incredible ability to communicate without words. You know that person's routines, how they are going to act, what their moods are. So M and I know each other and can communicate extremely well without much effort, not even many words really anymore.

Being on the beach was her most favorite thing on earth.

Its not that it bothers me so much that people romanticize my dog, it mostly just bores me. And sometimes there is this implication that my dog completely takes care of me and that blind people can do nothing without a dog to help them. After ten years of EVERYBODY in the universe talking to me about my dog, I'm mostly just bored with the topic of dog altogether. Literally, now it all sounds like "dog, dog. Dog, dog, dog." And I push play on my prerecorded responses. This is a rare thing for me to write so much about my dog. But, she has been a good dog, she has been lugged all over the country with me without complaint. She has endured endlessly long days of sitting quietly under my desk, hot cement under her feet at the bus stop, five mile impromptu hikes when we've missed the bus, she has missed out on being a slobbery, dirty old dog in my need to have her clean and well mannered, she has put up with rock concerts, smoky bars, and taunting behaviorally challenged children, evil right-turn-on-red drivers, and my occasional mess-up of going out with her for twelve hours straight without finding any opportunity for her to drink water save me letting her drink out of the public bathroom sink. She's a good dog, and has served her ten years well.

Where I spread her ashes.

I still miss her.

This is super long and unedited, but if you want to read about my sexlife, this is probably your only chance.

...and if you don't want to read about my sex life, skip it.

I just wrote a long series replies to a long series of emails, and I'm just going to post it.

The email is from someone I know and it was a part of a several larger dialogs, so I'm condensing (ha!) and cutting a pasting. It says in part:

I know this is none of my business, but I'm confused. You can tell me to go jump in the river, but I'm just going to ask. Are you and D a couple that are romantically linked? You say you've been together for 12 years but then you talk about dating others during that time. I'm just going to ask this, and again, you can ignore me. You talk about your lack of sex life, then you talk about you and D as a couple, then you talk about dating? Do you and D have it set up so you can date other people because he can't have sex? Are you friends with him and having sex with all those other guys? Would you two be married if he weren't disabled?I'm uninformed, so I'm asking to educate myself. I'm not trying to judge you. Something doesn't jive right for me with your blog.

And Demi Moore? Really? Was he friends with Bruce or Ashton? What did he say about her?

Well, first of all, I never said I had sex with all those other guys. Can I just get that in right off the bat before it makes me crazy?  I know I'm being defensive here, but I did not, in fact, have sex with every guy I ever dated, even some of the ones that were more longer term relationships. Okay? Okay. Sigh. Now I feel better.

Second, yes. Demi Moore. But neither Bruce or Ashton. This was in-between. I think the guy's name was Ollie something. Someone who reads more People Magazine than I do can probably figure out who it was. D.R. was heavily involved in a martial arts organization that this guy was also involved with, same for Chuck Norris. And get ready to laugh: all he said about her was that she wasn't that big of deal and I was better looking than her. Translation: Lisa, please accept this colossal bullshit lie of a compliment so you will forgive me for sipping cocktails in beautiful mountain resorts with drop-dead gorgeous actresses and rich people rather than spending my week saving you from the ghetto bus you have to ride to your ghetto job.

Okay, moving on now. Many other bloggers have written about this issue you raise about confusion with aspects of their stories. Autobiographical writing is extremely tricky. You want to tell the truth, but in the end, it is only your truth through your perception of reality. You want to do it in a way that doesn't hurt others and invade their privacy, but that is a land mine that as hard as you try not to, you will eventually inadvertently trip at some point. You also have a limited amount of space and time to write (and limited audience in that people will only read so much) so you round corners and edit to make things fit nicely into the topic at hand. I've been told many times that my posts are too long and go off on too many tangents. I know this is true. But I keep trying to make sure all the loose ends are cleaned up and it is impossible to do.

You end up writing not your life story, but little pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle. Then you round off the rough edges of the pieces to make it fit nicely into the current topic at hand. Then eventually someone comes along and says, "this puzzle piece doesn't fit with the one you wrote six months ago." And they'd be right. This happens in real life, too. For example, several years ago I went with D to look at a house that his parents were interested in buying. His mom introduced me to the real estate agent as D's wife. I let it go. When was I going to see this real estate agent again? I was just a peripheral part of what was going on, the buying of someone else's house, so my marital status was irrelevant. Then, a year later, my parents used the same real estate agent to buy a house. I met him again and he asked me about my husband. "Your HUSBAND!" my mom exclaimed. I politely said that D and I were not married but just lived together. My mother said something to the effect that we were just friends and roommates. Both the mothers come from a generation where there needs to be an explanation for a man and a woman living together. They both took two different tactics to smooth out their own perception of reality. I let it go again. Another year passes. I meet this same real estate agent on the street in my neighborhood I'm now living in with my dad. I am visibly pregnant. We small talk and I end up telling him that I am living in my father's house. With D? Well, no. He says nothing more about it and we both go on our way. So, who knows what he thinks, right? At what point am I supposed to sit down with the real estate agent and sort it all out for him, you know? Your life circumstances are framed by other's own perceptions of them. It is easy when you fit the mold. Like if I was married to D and we lived in a house and had children. But since I don't, and I can't explain everything to everyone every time, I know that we are going to cause confusion.

That is part of the reason that I have a blog. So at least somewhere I have a forum to tell people what is really going on. At least autobiographical writing in a blog is done in real time with a forum for other people to comment. There have been a few occasions when I have written something and real life people with comment or email me and say, "That isn't the way I saw what happened that day." or "That was not what I meant by what I said." This is a good thing, because then you can modify your blog to make it more accurate. I have done this at times. But it is still tricky.

Your confusion about D's and my relationship probably comes partly from me and my rounding of the corners of entries so that they don't exactly fit with other entries to the close observer. But it also comes from what I assume is your perceptions of reality that are different from my reality. You assume that D and I can't have sex or can't have a relationship, or have a compromised relationship that in some way needs to be supplemented by my dating other men. You are not the only one to assume this. I have fielded questions for several years from people (strangers, friends, family, even professionals in the rehabilitation field) about D's and my sex life. People think they can come right up to me and assume things out loud about us all the time.

Interestingly, I have asked D if people make these kind of comments and assumptions around him and he says that no one has really ever asked him about his sex life except for his mom, who has been known to paper clip articles and even advertisements for sexual function gadgets and medications for him. (For which he says has scarred him for life and cringes in horror whenever she does stuff like this. I just think its hilarious. If I have to field the sex topic from the public, at the very least he should have to have to deal with his mom.)

So then this is hard because on the one hand, I don't have a strong desire to go on and on about my sex life on my blog. But on the other hand, I think disability and sexuality should be discussed. I think it is stupid that it is taboo, I think that disabled people are thought to be asexual beings and that isn't right. I think there is a lot of misinformation regarding the physical functioning and specifics of how or whether disabled people can have sex. But then, do I want to put my life out there as the poster child of disability sex? Not so much. But obviously I blabbed about it just incoherently enough to confuse you, and I do appreciate that you just came right out and asked, so I'm going to try and answer your questions a bit here.

First of all, a bit of disability sex 101. I'm going to share this as long as we understand that I am writing not specifically about me and D but about people with spinal cord injuries in general. This is what I've learned from books, hospital staff, other partners of people with spinal cord injuries that I've talked to, personal experience, and whatever else. Here is a funny story to start us off:

When I was in college, before I met D, I was asked to be on a panel for a human sexuality class. It was me, a guy who was shot in Desert Storm and was a paraplegic, another women with a disability that completely escapes me now, and a high quadriplegic middle-aged man. I don't know why I was even asked to be there. Blind sex is no different than sighted sex, you know? So mostly I just talked about dating. The para, who was pretty newly injured, said point blank, "When you are in a wheelchair, face it guys, you just Don't. Get. Laid." He said it sucked but that's the way it was. I took it as word.

Then not 15 minutes later, the quad takes his turn to talk. He was much more disabled looking and actually much less good looking than the para. He happened to be doing his doctorate research on SCI and sex. So he actually has a VIDEO of himself having sex with someone that he shows. The TV was behind me and I couldn't see it anyway. To tell you the truth, I didn't even look. But I could tell that this quad guy had just rocked the world of the newly paraplegic guy. He was next to me and his mouth was just gaping open. And then, if this weren't all funny enough, my guide dog-- who had been resting quietly under my chair--all the sudden got up and started barking and growling at the video. It was hilarious. I actually think my guide dog kind of broke the mood of embarrassment we all felt and lightened everyone up. But, anyway, that was the first time I ever considered the possibility of guys in wheelchairs being able to have sex.

So, guys with spinal cord injuries can have sex. Depending on their level of injury and severity of injury, they can either have just plain regular functioning like anyone else sometimes. Or they can have erections but not ejaculate, or they can have trouble with erections, yet ejaculate, or they can do both yet they have a very low or no sperm count. Wheelchair does not equal no sexual functioning in spinal cord injured men. However, they can have a myriad of different levels of functioning. Also, many men have success with things like medications for erectile dysfunction. I am not going to tell you what D's functioning is specifically, but I will say that we did go the infertility treatment route because he had very low sperm count.

From the woman's perspective, (I'm considering what other women have told me or I have read about in addition to my own experiences) it's not as big of deal as you think. It's not that different. You work around things and really, there is not that much you really have to work around. In addition, there is the possibility of certain advantages, in that hey, it can--ahem, be all about you--you know? That's not such a bad thing. I know I'm going to come off sounding slutty here, but you know where I've only ever seen a problem? It's when a woman has only ever been with a man with a spinal cord injury and she wonders what it would be like with others. I understand the romance in saving yourself for just one person, and I respect people's decision to remain virgins until marriage, but sometimes I just think there is a lot of advantage to having a bit of experience and seeing what's out there. You get to see what the differences are and see what you really want. You get to decide for yourself what is a big deal to you and what isn't. Because, although some men are shall we say, "naturally talented," the vast majority of men can be trained in. If you really love 'em and are willing to provide on the job training then there is really no make or break thing about sex. I'd like to tell these young girls that who are dating a guy with an SCI and are curious about others. It's not that big of difference. Really. And as far as my bitching about my lack of sex life...well, in the past two years, I've been pg, had a huge healing cesarean scar, or had two little rugrats around. D has been hospitalized for months on end. On top of that we live in different locations and lack childcare. You do the math. Our circumstances are far beyond a little old spinal cord injury. Most of the time it is not a big deal to me in the least. But, yeah. Sometimes I go for long stretches where I miss it. Many times it has more to do with missing his presence and affection than the actual act of sex.

People don't see disabled people portrayed in sexual ways anywhere in the media so they can't (or don't want to) imagine that it exists. I think of myself and my perception of gay (male) sex over time. I don't remember ever having a problem with lesbian sex. But when I was younger, I thought male sex was disgusting to think about. Well, lesbian sex is all over the media because of the patriarchal obsession with watching sexual acts without having to watch other men perform it, so lesbian or female-female sex is more accepted and everywhere. Just look at any Girls G*N* W*LD commercial. Male sex has not been portrayed much. Now that I've known some gay men personally and have seen more men kissing and stuff on TV, it is much more acceptable to me now. I'm desensitized to it, or sensitized to it, whatever the case may be. It seems much more natural and healthy to me now. If disabled people were portrayed in more sexual ways, people would also come to see it as natural and healthy.

Switching gears now, finally I'll give you a quick and dirty chronology of D's and my relationship. This will be full of rounded edges, by the way.

In 1994, I met D and his brother, Q. Q was interested in me.