Carpet, Cocktails, and Catastophe

Today began poorly.

And ended poorly.

All I can say about the in-between is that HG and I shared about two blissful hours of picking out new recycled carpet tiles for our living room from this fabulous place, and shared two lovely cocktails at a lovely gay-owned bar nearby.

The rest of the day.

Sucked.

Sometimes I wonder if I/we just get so emotionally charged from the stressful events of our lives that we are unable to properly communicate what’s really going on.

Other times I wonder if “blending” a family just sometimes gives you the color gray.

Other times I wonder if there is just something inherently wrong with me that causes me to react emotionally/irrationally/unreasonably to the point of not realizing that I’m reacting emotionally/irrationally/or unreasonably.

Everyone brings different things to relationships.

I happen to bring:  baggage, issues, and loose strings.  The main one is the baggage, and that baggage will sometimes cause a “strife” from time to time; and most of that baggage is fear.

Fear of being abandoned.

Fear of being neglected.

Fear of being abused.

And just fear.  Plain old fear.

So I hide here, in a place that brings me comfort and safety, because the rest of it is too scary.  I know that I shouldn’t hide; that I should be the “one” to wear the big girl panties and make everything all better.  But sometimes I can’t find my big girl panties.

Because sometimes, they’re in the laundry.

Hello Xanex,

You’re not doing your job today.

Let me see if I can set the scene. And keep in mind it is 10:17 in the morning.

DD#1 begged us to let her have a sleepover last night, so that she and her “band” can work on writing some songs, because I guess they think they’re going to be the next Cheetah Girls or something. I left it up to HG, and she agreed, because after-all, she is a the sainted step-parent.

Well, one of the girls had to leave about an hour after she got here. Her older sister came to pick her up, something about her father having a “problem.” I was actually shocked that she came in the first place, considering her father, (whom I never cared for,) is a complete bible thumper. Perhaps his “problem” had something to do with the fact that suddenly realized that his daughter was spending the night at “The Lesbians” house. I don’t know, but I have my strong suspicions.

Later, after I burnt the pizza and the girls went hot tubbing, they were ready for a movie. They went to great lengths popping their popcorn and getting their snacks for the movie. Remember the incident with Ginger on Valentines Day? The one where she almost died from chocolate poisoning. The one where we threatened their lives if they EVER took chocolate upstairs into the family room ever again?

Apparently DD#1, forgot.

So I made her bring the popcorn laden with M&M’s downstairs and throw the entire thing away. She cried and said, “You’re just wasting your money.” To which I replied, “No. YOU’RE wasting my money. And I’ll remember that the next time you want something.”

Later, I discovered that DD’s #2 and 3 were eating the same M&M laden illegal snack food. And not only were they eating the illegal snack food, (after I explicitly told them not to and had them brush their teeth,) they were eating the illegal snack food upstairs, (where it’s not allowed to be,) AND they were eating the illegal snack food, in our bed.

Let’s just say that at that moment, I really, really, really wished that I believed in spanking my children.

The little girls went to bed, after I lectured them about their blatant disrespect and disregard. A lecture that I am not quite finished with. The older girls giggled for awhile and I was asleep before them, thanks to those lovely orange sleeping pills my doctor prescribed for me.

And that brings us to today.

Today, HG had to get up at an un-godly hour to pick up our neighbors from the airport, and when she returned, she returned to me locked in my office, trying to write my newspaper article, and five little girls running full speed, yelling through the house playing hide and seek.

She went to the bathroom about an hour ago and I haven’t seen her. I suspect she is packing and talking to her lawyer about a divorce, but so far I haven’t seen any suitcases being toted out to her Subaru, so I’m hopeful she’s just in there pulling her hair out.

One of the girls just left, the other one’s parent is now TWELVE minutes late picking her up. What the hell? But I am one step closer to sanity.

And here is a good one…

As the one girl was driving out of our cul-de-sac, DD#1 turned to me and said, “Can we go shopping?” I looked at her, didn’t say a word, and shut the door.

For a twelve year old girl, she sure has gigantic balls.

XH will be here at noon, and my Spring Break will be over. I think a cocktail might be in order…

Gwen, Gwen, Gwen.

So my girlfriend Gwen was performed on American Idol last night.  I was so excited to see her and I sat in front of the tv just waiting for 9:00 to roll around.

She came out, looking hot as ever and then she actually started singing.

What the Hell was that?

Not only did she sound like crap, she was lip syncing.  Lip syncing, you know like Milli Vanilii.

WTF?

I decided right then and there that it was over between us. I don’t have girlfriends who lip sync.  Not even on American Idol.

She’s all yours Kami.

The Happiest of Birthdays!

I had an amazing birthday.

Really, if the first day of being twenty-eighteen is any indication of the year that I will have, I am going to really enjoy this time of my life.

We picked up the DD’s and went to a fun and fabulous breakfast. The girls gave me their gifts, including The Secret dvd, and the new Gwen Stefani cd. Fabulous cards and DD#2 spent her own money on some cute dog stickers, a notepad and a magnet.

We then got ready and HG, CC and I ventured downtown early to go to Powells bookstore. Powells is an amazing place, spanning an entire city block, housing millions of books on a huge variety of subjects. If a book has been published, it’s probably there.

At 4:00 we met my best friend Darcy, her girlfriend Lynne, and Witchtrivets and her lovely wife, Mrs. Witchtrivets at one of the most beautiful spots in Portland, the Portland City Grill. It is a bar and restaurant that is on the 30th floor of the tallest building in Portland. The view is amazingly spectacular.

After that, we were off to a lesbian dance where we met LeLo and AdRi. Lot’s of fun, lot’s of dancing and chit-chat.

After the dance, we made it through the monsoon that was our weather and had dinner at a nice little gay-owned restaurant that we frequent, frequently.

There, LeLo and AdRi gave me birthday presents that were all witch related!

The gifts all came from a store that is owned by a family who relocated their home and business here to Portland from New Orleans after Katrina. LeLo and AdRi picked out some awesome things for me with careful instructions; I can’t wait to burn my new candles and visit the store myself sometime soon.

Some of my other gifts were,

My new speedlight for my D-50, (from my loving, beautiful and fabulous wife.) Two books, one from LeLo and AdRi, and one from my neighbor Judy. A pirate eye-patch, and pirate game, (because I want to be a lesbian-witch-pirate when I grow up,) and an ANT FARM. Yes, it’s what I wanted and my best friend Darcy made it happen for me. My ants should be arriving any day and there is a whole village for them to romp about in. It’s even expandable. Why, we may even have to find a room in the house just for the farm. Darcy also bought me a tiara and a magic wand, okay it’s a princess wand, but I want it to be a magic wand so it is. It didn’t help the rain any, but that’s because it was new. I’m sure once it gets broken in, there will be no more rain on my birthdays.

Fabulous day. Fabulous party. Fabulous friends. Most fabulous wife who paid for it all!

More pictures on Flickr. Be sure to check out the ones using my new speedlight of my beautiful wife, incredible.

An now on to being another year older. I can’t wait.

Officially Twenty-Eighteen

Well as of 11:55 in whatever time zone Oscada, Michigan is I will have turned Twenty-Eighteen.

Last night in the bathroom of Macaroni Grill, I swear I saw a whole bunch of my hair suddenly turn grey.  I nearly made HG stop at Walgreen’s for a box of Loreal on our way home.

Now we’re off to pick up the DD’s from their dads for some brunch at Elmers.  (I thought I’d just add a whole bunch of product placement names here!) 

Then we’re off to more birthday celebration that I will of course chronicle with photographs.

Thank you to everyone who sent e-mails, comments, and phone calls.  I really love and appreciate my blog family so much.  I promise to have a martini with you in spirit later tonight, and a real martini with some blog friends IRL:  LeLo and AdRi and Witchtrivets and Mrs. Witchtrivets.  Yeah for blog friends, yeah for martinis!

Ciao y’all.

Three out of five is more than 10%

One of the preludes to our interesting Mexican restaurant dinner the other day was the L Word episode, mentioned by Lori in the comment section.  In the episode, the ladies were having a dinner party discussing a theory that little girls who wanted monkeys as pets when they were children turned out to be lesbians and little girls who wanted horses as pets when they were children turned out to be straight.  The other test was how one looked at their nails when prompted.  Girls who held out their hands, fingers straight out, palm side down, were straight.  Girls who bent their fingers, palm sides up, were gay.

On Tuesday, out of no where, DD#2 was stating that she really wanted to get a monkey.  I thought it was kind of ironic/funny and told HG, “Uh-oh, DD#2 says she wants a monkey.  You know what that means!”  The next evening while we were at dinner, she brings it up again.  We were sitting at a large booth with the three girls on one side, HG and I on the other.  The girls were sitting in order of age, #3, #2, and #1.  So I took a poll, asking each of them which pet they would prefer, a monkey or a horse.

The answers:

DD#3:  Horse
DD#2:  Monkey
DD#1:  Horse

After dinner, the fried ice cream arrived and they attacked it like vultures.  I told them to put their spoons down and look at me.  Then I said, “Look at your nails”

DD#3:  Palm down, (straight)
DD#2:  Palm up, (gay)
DD#1:  Palm down, (straight)

Of course HG and I just laughed, because that would be our suspicion all along!  I guess we’ll see in a few years if this little science experiment works.  This blog post can be part of the research project!

I’ll address the sex questions at a later time.  It’s a post all to itself.

I have one more day of being 37.  I’m celebrating by treating myself to a trip to Marshall’s; maybe TJ Maxx too if I’m feeling particularly wild!  Later, HG, CC and I are going to a movie and dinner.  It’s the start of my twenty-eighteen weekend, and I AM THRILLED!

The weather man says that it’s going to rain tomorrow but I don’t believe him, nope I do not.  He’s a liar and he may as well just admit it to everyone right now.  Tomorrow is my birthday and it’s all about ME, and I won’t have any rain on my parade, no I will not.

Tomorrow is also my bitch Kristine’s birthday.  If I have to share my birthday, it may as well be with a hottie like her.  Go over and wish her a happy one!

Two days ’til Twenty-Eighteen

• My witchraft books haven’t come from Amazon.com yet, but I am hopeful for today and a visit from my friend, The UPS guy.

• Final touches made on my Twenty-Eighteen birthday celebration. It will be a “Lesbian Night Out” kind of night!

• HG’s sister is arriving in two hours, we must leave in a few minutes because I need to stop at the market first. Any minute HG will be yelling at me to get off of my computer.

• Last night we went to dinner (because princesses don’t cook on their birthday weeks,) and here are some of the topics of conversation:

DD#2 said that she wants a monkey.
The other girls want a horse.
DD#1 said that they are starting their “abstinence only” sex education program next week.
DD#2 asked, “What IS sex?”
DD#1 asked, “What is an abortion?” (stemmed from watching a Ludacris video…)
DD#3 asked, “How do you make a baby?”

Good times at the old Mazatlan Mexican restaurant. Good thing I ordered the half-liter of Sangria last night.

• I expect a lot of fun-filled activity over the next few days, why with company in town and birthdays to celebrate. And it looks like even the sun may decide to come out.

• My life rocks.

• HG is now yelling…

Ask RSG

Wondering if I should change the advice section of my blog to “Dear Doily Dyke?”  Y’all can let me know…

 Hi, RSG,

I’m a fairly new reader to your blog and I enjoy it a whole, whole lot.  If this isn’t too intrusive, I’d really like to ask you some questions about how you came into your sexual identity and how you found any peace in figuring out your sexual orientation.

My partner and I have been together for just shy of a year.  We’re both young; I’m 22 and she’ll be 21 next month.  I have been out for about 4 years now and my partner, almost 2.  I’m curious about your experiences because my partner is really struggling with her identity.  In past relationships, when it’s gotten too hard to hear from her family that what she’s doing is wrong, she runs to a relationship with a man and stays there for a little while and she tries to convince herself that she can do it; that she can be straight and happy and in love and intimate with a man.  Man, RSG, she is sooooo gay.  Believe me.  Gay gay gay.  She’s gay.  But right now, she and I are in a situation and there’s all kinds of doubt and dishonesty and…dyke drama going on, and I guess I just want to know that it’s possible for someone to quit convincing themselves they’re one way and relax and let themselves be happy, even if it’s going to be hard.  You and your partner clearly have something special and I dunno.  I guess I’m seeking some blind reassurance.  Thanks, RSG.

–A–

Dear –A–,

I came into my sexual orientation and identity by awakening to the fact that I was indeed a lesbian.  I asked myself some very simple questions, such as, “If I could be with a really hot man or a really hot woman, with no strings attached sex, which would I choose?”  The answer, The Woman.  “Would I be okay with going the rest of my life without being with a man?”  The answer, Yes.  “Could I go the rest of my life without being with a woman?”  The answer, No.   But mostly I felt alive, awake and real for the first time in my life after I had my first lesbian relationship.  And I still feel that way every day.  I am gay.  Gay, gay, gay. But the difference between me and your girlfriend is that I’m okay with it; your girlfriend obviously is still struggling.

Is it possible to get over the struggle and relax and be who you are?  Of course it is, and their are about twenty million examples of people who have done just that.  Can you do anything to expedite that process?  Probably not.  This is your girlfriends journey and she has to travel it.  You can stand beside her and support her on it, but you can’t do it for her and you can’t convince her to do anything different than what she is doing.

Relationship advice 101:  You can’t make your partner feel, think, or understand something that she isn’t capable of feeling, thinking, or understanding for herself at the time.

Love her, support her and validate her.  If she runs away from you because of her insecurities and fear, you certainly have the right to set up healthy boundaries and be emotionally healthy.  Doubt and dishonesty are two things that are definitely not part of a healthy relationship, and if it’s negatively affecting you, it’s time to move on until she figures out what and who she wants to be, and who she wants to be with.  You can be a supportive friend without being a martyr or a doormat, never let someone’s self-destruction destroy you.

It’s a journey.  You’re both young and will evolve and change through the years.  You’re much too young to be caught in a Dyke-drama filled relationship that brings you pain and confusion.  Decide what you can tolerate and stick with that plan, love yourself first.

Best of luck!

RSG

It’s my birthday…week!

And I’ve already begun shopping for myself.

Yes, this Saturday I will be celebrating my eighth annual thirtieth birthday and amazingly, this morning I discovered more wrinkles than I’ve ever seen.  And Aunt Flo, who is ALWAYS a whore, dealt me more fun yesterday than I’ve ever had.  After research, I found that Aunt Flo begins to act like this when one is peri or pre-menopausal.  Isn’t that lovely? Yes, it seems as though I am pre-menopausal.  Oh, I know there are benefits to that, but there are also tremendous drawbacks which I don’t have the energy to even bring up at this time.

To mark the occasion of my turning twenty-eighteen I will be throwing myself a little birthday celebration that will entail quite a few martini’s I am sure, shared with my wife, my visiting sister-out-law and some friends, spanned over the day and evening.  (And hopefully there will be presents from my wife, presents from Camera World…)

But for the presents to myself, I did a little shopping yesterday on Amazon.com.  On our camping trip, I read a sweet and entertaining book called Girls Guide to Witchcraft, which I loved enough to even e-mail the author, Mindy Klasky to let her know.  Turns out,  Ms. Klasky is also a blogger, so of course I now love her even more!  The book is a story about a young, (and I mean young as in 29, which is now young to me being that I am twenty-eighteen) woman who discovers that she is a witch.  After finishing the book, I decided that I want to be a witch too, so I ordered some spell-books from the Internet, (as well as one of Mindy Klasky’s other books,) and in three to five days I will learn how to make potions and cast spells.  I may even buy a hat.  I see it this way.  Long ago, people hung and burned lesbians for being witches, so if my sisters before me have already done the time, I may as well do the crime.  Besides, what’s cooler than a lesbian witch, really?  I may start a new trend.

Later today I am going to address a few Ask RSG questions that have been flagged for follow up in my in-box for some time.  Now I know that I’m not Dear Abby, or even Lipstick and Dipstick, but I do what I can to help my lesbian sisters.

Ask RSG, coming up later today.  But now.  Target is calling my name, (I’m not finished shopping for myself after all…)

I survived

We just returned from our camping adventure, and I have just a few points before I go to work.

• Our tent trailer rocks.
• HG is very butch.
• Damp firewood doesn’t work worth a damn in a campfire.
• I was wrong about Oregonians and camping; the damn campground was FULL.
• There were two other lesbian couples there.
• That’s more than 10%.
• Aunt Flo has terrible timing.
• HEAT in a tent trailer is the best thing invented, EVER.
• I suck at Rummy.
• Taking a shower after three days of not, is Heaven.
• There is nothing better than a beautiful, warm Spring Oregon weekend with the one you love in the woods. With wine. And vodka.

**More pictures on Flickr.