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i am: 40...a capricorn / moon in pisces / libra rising...an old soul with a young spirit...older than i look...contemplating my 3rd tattoo...NOT a web designer...a lesbian...working things out with the g.f....a native iowan...a graduate of cornell college and ohio state...a critical reader and thinker...really rather shy...agnostic...an ardent feminist...a bleeding-heart liberal...a pacifist...and so not your average white grrl...
e-mail me
feeling generous? *grin*
Who Links Here
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January 31, 2003
things that go "bump"Night
Night is when you turn out a light.
Night is when sister has a fright.
At night it is very dark.
No more children at the park.
—lisa, 2.22.75 my sister had nightmares all the time. usually, mom would get up and go into her room to make sure she was all right and soothe her back into sleep.
one night, when i was about 10 or 11, laura woke up screaming...something about an alligator under her bed. i lay in my bed, in my own room down the hall, waiting to hear mom get up and go to check on her. after about 5 minutes, there was no sign of mom, so i got up myself. on my way down the hall, i stopped at mom's room and opened the door. it was pitch dark. i couldn't see a thing.
"mom," i whispered. "mom, wake up! laura had a nightmare."
"what are you doing?" mom said, obviously alarmed. "go in and check on her and i'll be there in a minute."
by this time, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. before i turned to leave, i saw a pair of men's shoes sticking out from under the bed. i glanced up and saw the outline of someone besides mom under the covers. i suddenly felt sick. but i went to check on laura, anyway.
moments later, mom came flying out of her room and into laura's. she gave me "a look" and went to comfort her youngest child. i went back to my room. i felt like i was going to throw up. i couldn't stop shaking. my tears were hot streams down my face.
awhile later, after mom had returned to her room and laura had gone back to sleep, the door to mom's room opened again. two sets of footsteps—one heavy, one light—made their way downstairs. i heard the back door open, and then close. i heard a car start up and drive away.
the next day, my eyes were swollen almost shut from crying and lack of sleep. i couldn't look mom in the face. she wouldn't look at me, either. i was relieved to escape to a babysitting job down the street that afternoon.
the night before, i had felt like i always felt when she went out on dates. or when she had come home from a date, but stayed with the man out in his car, in our driveway, for what seemed like hours.
i felt how i would feel many nights almost a decade later, when my college roommate—the woman i loved, but didn't know i loved, at least not like that—left the room we shared to stay with her girlfriend. one time, it was so bad that i called them and begged to come over. i'd sleep on the floor, whatever. i just needed to be near them.
they let me. they were annoyed...but they let me. i never asked again.
days after my sister's alligator nightmare, mom tried to explain.
"i have needs, lisa." emphasizing that word like i was supposed to know what she meant.
i had needs, too. a need to be free from the fear that i'd wake up in the middle of the night and find some man i'd never met (and never would meet) in our house. a need to stay ignorant about the term "anxiety attack" for just a few more years. a need for a mother who wouldn't expect me to understand her needs, because she was busy taking care of mine. a need to just be a kid.
12:07 PM
January 29, 2003
in case you were wonderingremember that diversity committee i wanted to be on? well, i was finally told why i'm not (but only after asking).
our vice president, et al, decided that i shouldn't be on it...not despite my efforts on last year's diversity plan, but because of them. i had made a comment about the departmental climate for glbt staff—a comment that, by the way, was deleted before the plan was submitted to the university president—that they apparently didn't like.
i really don't like the thought of vice presidents and such, sitting around discussing my merits (or lack thereof). but worse yet is that they're forming a committee that is a total farce. they don't want any real change to happen. they just want to keep hiring 1 or 2 people of color every other year and call themselves compliant.
i honestly don't know why i was surprised. actually...i really wasn't. i was only trying to give the proverbial benefit of the doubt to people who don't deserve it. that, combined with hoping that i might be able to make some kind of difference, to help effect some kind of positive change, even if only on some small level.
alas...mistakes i make too often.
2:24 PM
January 28, 2003
and there's more...i was apparently quite prolific that week:Weddings
Weddings are beautiful,
Weddings are nice.
After a wedding you always throw rice.
Weddings are when two people join together
In spring, summer, fall, or winter weather.
—lisa, 2.20.75 s says she's reading that one at our wedding.
Animals
Animals beautiful and sleek
Forest animals drink from a creek.
Some are very soft and furry.
Alot of them run in a hurry.
—lisa, 2.21.75 Colors
Colors pink, colors red
Red is the color of a red, red head.
Pink is the color of a rabbits nose.
Green is the color of a garden hose.
Yellow is the color of a bright, bright sun.
Blue is the color of a day when it's done.
—lisa, 2.21.75 i guess i needed some work on my apostrophes, tho.
2:26 PM
see?Snow
Snow light and soft and white.
When it snows alot you shovel all night.
I like snow when you can make forts.
But snow isn't good for outdoor sports
Like football, soccer, volleyball too;
If you wanted to play you'd have to wear a snow shoe.
—lisa, 2.21.75 like i've said...creative writing never was my strong suit.
i am, however, impressed with my correct usage of the semicolon at such a tender age.
1:40 PM
January 27, 2003
life in a boxso, we're moving in a month. about a block down the street, to the cutest little brick house (yes, an actual house...no more sharing walls with smoky, noisy, rude neighbors). while it was unexpected, leaving us scrambling for the security deposit and $$ to pay a moving company (we've decided we're too old to be asking folks to help us move)—and wondering how in the hell we're ever going to figure out how to disassemble and reassemble the pieces of our bedroom set that, upon delivery, had to be assembled on-site because they wouldn't fit up the stairs—it was one of those opportunities that we just couldn't pass up. and while the prospect of purging and packing seems more than a little daunting, as well...we're excited. no, we won't own the place...but it seems like a good spot to land until we're ready for that.
the owner rehabbed it and lived there himself, for several years...and in my experience, when a gay man renovates a house for himself, he includes all sorts of little amenities that the landlords we've rented from in the past (i.e., gay men who didn't ever live there themselves) don't bother with...like ceramic tile in the kitchen...and refinished hardwood floors...and exposed brick...and a functioning fireplace. AND we can paint the walls! "nothing too loud," he said...but we're already putting together a "proposal," complete with back-up colors in lighter shades in case he freaks at our first choices. it may sound goofy, but we've been fantasizing about painting the walls of our home for years, so this is a big deal. we can't wait to move in.
so anyway...the other nite, i was going thru boxes of stuff in the basement, trying to sort out what i want to keep (and therefore, move) and what i can pitch. i'm a certifiable packrat, so there's a lot...and i came upon a whole bunch of stuff that i didn't even realize i still had:
the art work and various writings that my mom saved, from kindergarten on up...certificates from my completion of swimming and gymnastics lessons...a newspaper clipping from when i won a prize for my "hula girl" halloween costume...a pink scarf, on which i had embroidered my name (which looks like "usa" instead of "lisa")...the 2x3' latch-hook rug that took weeks to complete...the vial of ash from mount st. helens (dated 1980) that my grandmother brought me after she visited there...my first plane ticket...sea/tac, june 1977, when my brother paid for my sister and me to fly up to see him and my sister-in-law for 2 weeks. shopping for bathing suits with margaret...jeff kissing me goodbye as he left for work, and me wondering if margaret would be jealous....the totem poles in vancouver...a snowball fight on mount rainier, my first mountain experience...the ocean (my first time for that, too)...the camping trip...the bear that invaded our camp one night, and the slug the size of a football...fleetwood mac playing incessantly in the car.... dolls...a stuffed, sweet-faced holly hobby; and velvet, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, hard-plastic one with the hair that "grew" when you turned a knob in her back, whose ears i pierced and adorned with a pair of my own earrings. my elementary school autograph book...my little sister laura's goofy poems every few pages...signatures and addresses from girl scout and church camps, including the entry from a college-age counselor who said i was "a quiet sophisticate"...my best friend, jolene's entry: "god made the ni***rs, he made them in the night, he made them in a hurry and forgot to make them white." my "my senior year" book from high school... all my friends' senior pictures..."stay sweet" and "friends forever" and all the other corny things they wrote...the keg party admission "tickets" we sold for $3...my notice to appear in court after the cops busted us at one of those parties...diaper pins, painted with our school's initials in red nail polish, that we, as cheerleaders, pinned to the warm-ups of the wrestlers who had just pinned their opponents...many concert ticket stubs (foreigner...loverboy...the '82 iowa jam)...newspaper clippings of the homecoming court—i.e., ALL my old friends—from the high school i had left when my mom remarried and we moved after my sophomore year.... photographs...me—permed and clad in the yellow overalls i remember well—with my fellow employees from the wright pharmacy in traer...me in my cheerleading uniform...me and "the girls" (including the one whose face i exed out with white tape because she was the girlfriend of the boy i thought i loved) in the cafeteria after school...me "singing" into a curling iron between junior skip day and the evening party that followed.... cassette tapes (remember those?)...peter gabriel...the cocteau twins...book of love...sheila e...erasure...sisters of mercy...queen...the pretenders...janet jackson...joy division...the talking heads...the tom tom club...jane siberry...phranc...throwing muses...the cure.... albums (remember those??)...elton john...joyce sims...r.e.m....chaka khan...soho...soul II soul...ministry...laurie anderson...big audio dynamite...inxs...the fixx...bronski beat...nu shooz...kate bush...ub40...the english beat.... the mixtapes i loved to make..."mix that's eclectic," side a: "slave to the rhythm (grace jones); "the big sky" (kate bush); "all day" remix and "the angel (ministry); "full circle" and "fascinated" (company b); "i can't wait" (nu shooz); "break out," n.a.d. mix (swing out sister). side b: "icing sugar" and "the perfect girl" (the cure); "golden playpen" (inxs); "reach the beach" (the fixx); "why can't we live together," "smooth operator," and "hang on to your love" (sade); "don't break my heart" and "many rivers to cross" (ub40); "doors of your heart" (the english beat); "e=mc2" (big audio dynamite).... so i sat there. in the basement, on a 37-pound pail of scoopable cat litter. listening to the gurgling and whirring of the washing machine. sorting out the contents of the long-ago parts of my life. so many phases, represented in just a few boxes. soon we'll be boxing up the last 3 years, deciding what parts are worth saving and what parts we can do without, and agonizing over the difficult choices. and the next time we move, we'll pare it all down even further.
we are all products of our histories. if you've had the patience to read this far, you're probably like, "ummm, lisa? duh?!". but this concept still blows my mind sometimes. i have been shaped by every person i've known, every experience i've had, every place i've ever been, every mistake i've made, every bit of pain or happiness or contentment or sadness that i've felt.
it all adds up to me.
4:28 PM
January 16, 2003
people suckmy sister hasn't acknowledged my birthday. nary a call, card, note, or e-mail. she's missed it before, but she always warned me that the card or the gift or whatever was going to be late. this year? not a word. yes, we've had some issues during the last year. yes, she and her husband have both been laid off recently (from the company that bought enron, where they both worked before its demise), and are in the middle of some ugly associated legal problems. but is a call or a card or an e-mail too much to expect?
s received a belated x-mas card the other day from her mother, who wrote:"break the chains of the devil. i pray for you and lisa so you will see that god loves you, and that god's love is enough." in other words, she (finally) knows we're not going to "change" (read, become heterosexual), but that's okay...as long as we end our relationship, deny our love for each other, and come to the realization that "god's love is enough." i would like to ask her one question: why wasn't god's love enough for her?
last year, i participated in completing our departmental diversity plan, recently mandated by the university in its increasing attention to "diversity issues." last fall, i was talking to the head of our h.r. office, who said that she wanted me to be on the diversity committee for our department (of ~160 employees), and i made my interest in that clear. the other day, i learned that the committee was formed in november, and i'm not on it. i have a strong feeling that my boss had something to do with it. it would be so very him to put the kabosh on my participation (despite his insistence that my involvement in diversity-related activities be a part of my "professional development goals" for last year's performance review), just because he could. if it wasn't him, then it was someone else deciding that i don't deserve to be on this committee. either way...i'm pissed.
the thing about people who suck and what they do that makes them suck is, it's always worse when you don't...or rather, when you consistently do everything in your power to ensure that you don't, even if you do slip up and suck occasionally (as we all do).
and it's worse yet when you make the mistake of caring. i wish i didn't care that my sister has—with the exception of the kind of perfunctory notes dictated by emily post and miss manners—pretty much written me off. i wish s (or i) didn't care what her mother thinks or says. i wish i didn't care that someone with the power to do so has deemed me unfit to serve on a committee that i actually care about. but alas...we do.
so, yeah. people suck.
12:45 PM
January 13, 2003
an emac for my bdaywell, i'm no longer "comin' up fast on 38"...i'm there. it feels a little weird to be that old, but...i know it's all in my head. i've long said that "i live to defy stereotype"...and i guess i can do that in terms of age, too. hell...i have been doing that, and doing it for years. i say this now, but...get back to me in a coupla years when i turn 40. *laughing*
my 3-day birthday weekend turned into a fabulous 2-day weekend—highlighted by a national championship (the excitement has been contagious), a lovely dinner out with s, and the osu women's defeat of a nationallly ranked team for the 3rd time this season—followed by 3 days at home, sick with the flu. even so, i can't complain. s completely surprised me with an emac. i mean, there was this big box covered with blankets in the dining room, at which i was admonished not to peek (i'm really not as nosy as she accuses me of being)...but a computer?? i had no idea. i thought it might be a printer to accompany the digital camera that she got me for x-mas...but a computer?? i was blown away! my sweetheart ROCKS. *grin* i'm actually not blogging from home, tho. while the computer itself is the coolest, our current dial-up connection isn't. one of these days, we may just have to take the roadrunner plunge....
for the meshell heads out there, peep the "polylogue" section of freemyheart.com. matthew has created a new forum that's similar to the old artist one message board (but with some very cool features) that's a lot more navigable than the one at okayplayer. check it out.
oh, and by the way...did y'all read about meshell's grammy nomination? i've never put much stock in such awards, and the fact that she's up against ashanti (among others) for best contemporary r&b album cheapens the whole thing in a really huge way (be NICE, lisa, be nice....). but i'm hoping the nomination will be worth it for the extra album sales alone.
and with that? i'm out.
10:22 AM
January 03, 2003
streamofsemiconsciousnesshow is it 2003 already? go bucks (beat those candy 'canes)...icy steps + not paying attention = feeling like i just played in a football game...i love "tsunami" (by res), but it's making me cry...i'm not sure about these chinese-turquoise-inspired colors yet (but nappi likes them)...3-day weekends ROCK...shrimp scampi pizza for dinner?...antwone fisher was beautiful (i need to see it again)...catch me if you can was fun; but did all the women really have to be portrayed as either sluts or idiots (or both)?...i want another tattoo, this time with color (oranges and reds, hmmm...)...would my colleagues think less of me if i got my nose pierced?...do i really care what my colleagues think?...i feel like getting drunk on apple martinis...why do i love maraschino cherries?...those cherry cola mike & ikes weren't as good as i thought they'd be...i want frosted sugar cookies instead of a birthday cake...i'm 3 days from turning the age my mother was when she bought her first house...i wonder how the rj snappers menu has changed since we were last there...s should be on her way to pick me up any minute now...i can't wait to spend my byzantium gift certificate...dancing lessons start up again next week...oops—i meant to hook up my cd burner today and forgot...i have not done any work today (unless blogging and buying underwear online constitutes work...?)...my boobala is here—have a great weekend.
4:41 PM
January 02, 2003
r.i.p.even if his work did launch the career of richard gere and god(dess) only knows who else, i never thought of him as merely a "celebrity photographer." his music videos are unforgettable. he could capture the magnificence of the human form on film better than almost anyone.
rest in peace, herb ritts.
12:48 PM
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