Back of a taxi tear pooling on the rim of sunglasses so tired so spent running to get a car rental togo to a funeral that I don’t care about anymore becuse she’s gone but my nephews are alive and suffering and my mother and sister are in pain but still divided between what’s best for them and what’s best for Sis. Sis is so sick saying her child is evil and the bi le says its ok to beat the demons out of him he’s only three and now the 1 year old is getting beaten and they called social services but they can’t say everything oh no because she’ll go to jail and she needs help so the worker is talking abiut anger classes but church (thank god) says she needs hosital therapy and drugs. And because u’m the driver I have to get the car and therr are no trains in my hood. In taxi ans wanted to send money and do toes but instead driving to funeral for one who feels no pain while maribelle whines about missing her program because I asked her tio make breakfast and god she was like there is no food and I had to go and show her everything and she still pouts about her show while I run around to do things to take her to the funeral when all I want to do is get money to my mom becsuse I can’t turn back time and I can’t change the insanity of sis but hey a little somethung for groceries or a toy to distract for a mii nute from the pain of the bruises on their little bodies. Hurt so much and thank you for reading my meltdown.

Flo 2

Originally uploaded by nycphoenix

I don’t know if he had shots. I don’t know if he’s sick (not till Wednesday). I don’t know what he was fed. And he needs a bath. I don’t know his age. I don’t know why they had gender confusion with him and called him Flo at first.

I know he’s afffectionate. I know he likes to follow us around. I know that he hasn’t scratched anything yet. And after last night, I know he loves his new toy.

After 7 years of fighting with ms. Scaredofcats, there is now a cat in the house.apparently josie had a cat and it escaped ans was roaming the neighborhood until it was found by mikey today and she brought it home.

I don’t even know how it looks like but I am in serious giggles of the idea of mikey alone with a cat. She’s called twice anxiously asking when I’ll be home.

I may take the long way home.

hey all just wanted to give a heads up that’s more than the twits.

from the twits you’ve gathered that work is crazy i got a sunburn that has left the pain stage and gone to itchy.

you have gathered from the last post that Mikey has lost another friend. I also lost a friend three weeks ago and the memorial was yesterday so yah the emotional reserves are on empty right now.

so of course what should occur but another crisis in the tropics. authorities have been summoned and I am practicing restraint of pen and tongue.  or as my sponsor would say turning it over to a God that always protects children and alcoholics. So in that sense, my nephews and I are ok

Yvette, Mimi, Alex, Josie, Vilma and TOE

All Nuyorcians.

Yvette and Josie escaped into love. They looked for princes among the projects and found their love in motherhood, one with seven and the other with five. Mimi found her love in the arms of femmes and in her work to save baby butches from the streets.  Alex found love in doing God’s work among the men and women healing from churches who told them they were not worthy of God’s love. Vilma found love through a journry of adultery, homelessness and violence but at long last she found her prince and the joy of bringing a new life out of the love. Without realizing her daughter’s initials spelled out TOE so she was known by her family as “our little TOE.”

TOE became sick and four months from the day she took her first breath in Vilma’s arms she took her last.  Vilma, also sick but didn’t know it would follow TOE a couple of years later. Yvette’s lungs couldn’t match her heart; couldn’t fight the pollution of her neighborhood; couldn’t fight that last asthma attack. Alex gave so much of his heart to help others heal that his heart decided to rest one night forever. Mimi died in the arms of a femme, weary but satisfied that one of her baby butches made good. Josie, never letting something as little as a virus stop her from taking names and kicking ass, decided she had set everything right and at 3:55pm today, she went home.

Maribelle aka Mikey. A Nuyorican. A big sister for 30 years. An aunt for only four months. A baby butch mentee at the age of 17. A thirtysomething Christian who found a man who told her that God loved her lesbian self. A friend to two women since adolescence who loved her for who she was and were proud to have her around their kids; one with five and one with seven.

Mikey, Vilma, Josie, Yvette, Alex, Mimi and TOE. Nuyoricans proud of their Puerto Rican, proud to call the city of New York their home. Battle scarred from the fights against every injustice sent their way. Veterans called home when their work was done.

Pa’lante! Presente! Keep the salsa playing and the party going till we meet again.

Turns out the forms sent o me by the clinic are a request to get the disposal forms. Filled them out and sent them.

Spent the morning at the beach and now am at a Met game. Last minute opportunity.

Ok if this is the way I am going to blog then I should just twitter

A couple of months ago I paid 500$ to store lesbian TTC crack aka our remaining sperm vial. Now another $500 dollars is due making this one inch plastic vial very expensive.

I started work in May. If I cycle in August/September and am successful (HA) I am leaving for maternity leave with nothing accumulated in vacation , personal, sick. Yeah sure I can use FMLA which would guarantee me a job when I get back but no income until then. And honestly I wouldn’t blame my job for beign resentful of the chick who gets pregnant less than six months in.

No matter what I say about being nonchalant while there is sperm near my hooha there will be insane inducing hope. Hope that I can’t afford to indulge in because even a year and change later the fall is still very present in my mind. The body remembers trauma. Thinking of a cycle be it clomid or IVF and my muscles tense, my heart palpitates, and I break into a sweat.

When I think about my desire to be pregnant and give birth I was excited. Then anxious. Then terrified. Then heartbroken. and now? I am angry. No. Raging Mad.  This isn’t the way I want to be pregnant. This isn’t the way I want to have a baby. I am a walking ball (a very obese ball) of anger grief resentment, a broken Pandora who THINKS she has Hope safely inside her box but it’s smoke and mirrors; ignore the man behind the curtain who are you going to believe me or your own eyes.

That vial siting in Dr. Paisan’s office represented hope: all crystal and light, Swarovski quality prisms of light but now it feels like I am pouring money in a hope that is really plexi glass with silver glitter glue smeared on it to give it the illusion of light. That 1K I may end up spending is part of a down payment for a car or a home. A vacation. A car.

Tomorrow I will call Dr. Paisan’s office. Tomorrow I will sign a form and mail it quick before the Ghost of Ewok Past whispers into my ear. And by Monday; a vial will be destroyed.  New hope: for peace, for healing for clarity will be the one that remains in the box.

To quote Anne Lamott: Please, please, please. Help,help,help.

I am sooo PMSing. I just want everyone around me to just shut up and leave me alone so i can do all the things I need to do. I need to register Mikey and me for this conference. I had to book her flight to visit her mom earlier. I gave the first of my recommendations to my pastor yesterday. EEEEEK! I need more meetings. I hate having to cut one meeting out for couple’s therapy.  Only been to one this week and one tomorrow. I suggested going to the beach saturday but I feel too fat and ugly to go because I gained all the weight I lost last month and my knees hurt and I got cramps and I move and waddle and why would I want to subject the public to seeing me in a bathing suit? I bit Mikey’s head off and I don’t care. My teeth are oversensitive to cold and I hate life.

And then there is The Decision.

Whoever said that were neither infertile or going through couple’s counseling.

In the past six weeks I have experienced:

• Mikey cry when talking about our infertility.
• Mikey talk about her grief at not having children.
• Mikey look at me and say she didn’t realize how important it was to me to have a renewal of vows and how much it hurt when it never came to pass.
• Mikey talk about her fears and uncertainty about proposing to me. Fear of not doing it right, fear of losing the tenuous tolerance of her mother and sister.

And various times in the past six weks I have expressed (within the controlled parameters of therapy):

NOW!?!?! Four years, about 15 tries, needles, and doctors and drugs and mood swings and tears and twenty pounds and begging to hear something anything from you and it takes six weeks at 150 dollars a week to FINALLY get some emotional response!!!!!!

Apprently the skills I have as a social worker to recognize patterns in behavior and the knowledge about grief being non-linear and everyone has their own timeline seems to have taken a hiatus when it regards the one I love.  I am soooo angry and resentful right now because I have had to wait so long to get what I needed to see from her.

You see, she is in a place now that I was in sometime last year. I have found my voice through this blog. I have found my soul with the help of God and all of you. I am at a place where the pain is less overwhelming (but always there) and I have found something to look forward to, a way to transform my pain and suffering to rise again and hopefully provide comfort to those who rise with me. My next post is going to details about this plan. I’m also hoping it will be the springboard for my seminary essay.

But right now, I am struggling to find the empathy for my love, my partner. I am so ashamed of this. Maybe because it took so long to get to this slightly healed place that I don’t know if I can spare any empathy for someone who is on a different timeline. I’m scared that I will regress and and fall into the black hole I was in. Can I step into the edge of that hole, reach down and help Mikey come through the other side?

I guess its not a question if can or cannot. I have to do it. For our sake I have to walk on the edge.

Sorry for the mostly silent weekend. Sis-not-in-law was in town for the weekend so there was much visiting tourist ridden museums, sushi eating, and cloak and dagger shopping where you mutter code words to strangers on the street and secret doorways are opened, quick perusals are made, and cash passes hands. I scored a very nice “Italian designer” tote bag. *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*

Manhattanites: Visit Levain Bakery and get one cookie. Just one. It is whole-stick-of-butter-whole chocolate-bar six ounces of heaven.  This is the cookie for those who can’t decide what’s better: eating a cookie or eating the dough.  Crispy cookie top layer, soft warm semi baked doughy middle. *swoon* Luckily, they are in a neighborhood I don’t frequent often or I would be living there.

Speaking of heavenly sweets why oh why is this place overlooked when people talk of cupcakes in the city? I never knew about it till about a month ago.

And to round out the sweet talk:  Mikey true dessert loves are two archaic recipes rarely seen anymore: banana and chocolate cream pies. So I am asking the locals. Where can i get these antiques OR anyone has proven recipes for these pies?