Sipping cheap 7-11 coffee, surrounded by piles of clothes - those needing to be washed (the sex-covered panties) and those needing to be put away - I am here, I am home.  Crap strewn about, books, jammies and scarves, jeans, hoodies and makeup galore.  This place is a god damn mess and I couldn’t be happier.

For the first time ever, I feel at home.

After 3 1/2 years and countless trips home to California, I now call this place … this place I reside, home.  It’s not the city I love.  Sure, there are things to love about it but it’s not the city.  It’s not the cockroaches and ’squitoes and the Bon Qui Quis on the bus and the douchebags in Georgetown and the ‘hose-wearing staffers on the hill.  It’s not that stuff, that’s for certain.  But it is my friends.  And it is the gorgeous architecture.  And the seasons and the walkability of it and the independent niche I have created here.  And the funny southern flair and my work.  Oh my work that I love so much.  I can’t say that I love this “place” but I love what this place has become for me.

I think for years I down-played the role the people here play in my life.  I used to say “Oh it’s a revolving-door city.  People come and go and you can’t make relationships.”  Well, I know more than anyone *ahem* that one’s ability to make relationships is a reflection of one’s efforts and emotional capacity.  A It’s not you, it’s me kinda thing. And for some reason the reality of the depths of the relationships I have built here has taken a while to wear on me.  For so long I took them as transparent and temporary when truly they have been acting out the leading role in this play I have written called my life.

So.  After 10 days in sunny wonderful California where I rehashed some things, opened some wounds, picked at some scabs and let my heart feel (*ahem* and made hot monkey love *ahem*) I have come home.  I have come home to the anxious arms of MP. And the laughter of good friends and cold whiskey on a Saturday afternoon and my little messy SFAH.

And let us not forget that I have come home to you.

Although google reader on my iPhone allowed me to read all of YOUR posts, I wanted to wait and stew and think and process and simmer before posting.  I wanted to feel it all and take it in and write some thing here for you, all of my lovely friends, my wonderful supporters in the tubes on the internets upon my arrival.

You people, this thing here, are also part of my home.  Some how, some way coming home “to you” was as exciting as anything else.

I cannot thank you enough for all of your loving supportive words upon my departure.  Thank you for posting through the holidays and keeping me sane.  Thank you for being a part of my home.  I am over-joyed today.  I cannot wait for ‘09 to get kickin.  I feel good about things folks.

I am home.

*by Kenny Loggins

It hit me today.  It finally hit me.  I don’t think I’d been avoiding it, but maybe those classes 4 nights a week and a busy job and homework every weekend was helping me forget.  Helping me push it away.  Helping me hope it would all go away, or get better.  And then classes ended and it was still there.  Shit.  Nothing fixed itself and nothing got better and hell, it’s December and time to go home and finally face the music.  Finally look it in the face.

On March 9th my father left.  For good.  Never before had he left.  In the many many years of marriage, my mother had left twice before and eventually came back.  But this time it was him.

Having been retired and living at the beach for only 8 months I knew this was good for them.  The place they felt happiest.  They could take all the walks on the beach they wanted.  Sleep in and smell the fog in the morning.  Cuddle up with the dog and have fires in the backyard in the middle of the week if they wanted!  But it would not be.

My father left.  For good.

These months have been rough.  Horrifically rough.  All those books they make for kids of divorcees?  Yeah FUCK YOU authors, I’m not 6 but I sure as hell feel like it.  Thirty-eight years of marriage and a happy family life and this is what I get?  This?  Phone calls at all hours of the day with someone on the other end crying.  My mom calls weeping.  My poor sister in California to deal with the fallout “alone”.  And my dad feeling relieved, in a tragically sad way.  Alone, yet “free”.  Even if it’s for the best, even if any of us think in the long run it will be ok, on days like today it sure as shit doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to get better.

Through it all I don’t know if being 3000 miles away is a blessing or a curse.  I’ve leaned on my support system and sent emails to friends and talked and talked and talked it over with my sister.  I was feeling ok about all this.  But there is nothing quite like going home to face the music.  To stay in my mother’s house with the photos ripped off the walls.  With her bed only half slept in.  With the fridge missing all my father’s favorite foods.  There are simply no words, no space in time to help an adult child of divorced parents prepare herself for these moments.

This evening I went to run an errand and snuck into a bookstore to try to avoid the laundry and the packing and the what-nots before I leave.  I finally left and stumbled past MPs apartment.  I went in for a hug.  He told me it would be ok.  That I needed to have faith and that it would all be ok and that I’m strong.  And then we laid on the Tempur-Pedic (AKA heaven) and I wept.  I cried and cried and cried.  After 100 “don’t cry”s from him, he just held me and stroked my head as I cried tears of sadness and fear and anger and frustration and disbelief.

I have come to you time and time again through my moves, my money woes, my school stress and hell, all the MP stuff.  Though it hasn’t felt that way, my outright avoidance at blogging about this subject is proof that my head has been in the sand.  I talk and think and pray and emote and do all those things I’m supposed to when growing and processing and learning.  But if anything in this mad mad world is true, if I’m not blogging about it, something is amiss.  Horribly horribly amiss.

What I want to be doing right now is sleeping in a Tylenol PM haze.  Instead I am forcing myself to talk about this.  Not to pick up the phone and shed one more tear.  But to do what I do best and that is to write.  So let me provide a preemptive apology - my writing in the next couple of weeks is either going to sound like a bad Falcon Crest episode or a little sporadic.

For those of you facing your own holiday blues.  I am sorry.  For each of us in our own way, these times can be hard.  I am thinking of all of you and reading and praying alongside you.  That hopefully I will go to sleep tonight and wake up on January 20th.  God, wouldn’t that be the most awesome thing ever!

Happy fucking holidays everyone.

Please send me pictures of your kids.  Or record your husband farting and send it in an MP3 file.  Or maybe a plate of cookies?  Or a jar of holiday cheer dipped in peppermint?  Or booze, you can’t go wrong with booze.  Ok, I am going to shut up now.  But blog about some funny shit, will you people?  This world feels like an awful place right now.  *sigh*

I sat in the hospital cafeteria avoiding the work I get paid for.  These tests have me down and it’s not enough that I study on the weekends and at night and on the bus and while masturbating (ok, that one was a joke) … but sometimes I study at work.  Yeah, sue me.  Yeah, so I don’t actually have the time at work to study but when push comes to shove I need to pass my classes.  Not to mention, I won’t be fired for powering through an extended lunch hour with my anatomy textbook c’mon.

I placed my magical iPhone headphones in my ears and selected some lovely mood music.  I can’t do songs with words cause I sing along to EVERYTHING.  And the last thing I need is a Madonna song peppered with mitochondria and DNA.  The Roots singing about cranial nerve III, no thanks.  I select some rain and thunder melodies and cracked open my book.  Chapter 28, the reproductive system.  Oy.  I hadn’t really thought that maybe I shouldn’t study the penis in the middle of a cafeteria.  Or wait.  Maybe I should!  Mwua ha ha ha ….

Testicles.  Scrotum.  Vas Deferens.  Blah blah blah.  Oh look an ovary!  Hi ovary.  I hate you bitches.  I really think you should die.  Every last one of you.  Wait shit, I shouldn’t say that.  One day I may need them.  Doubtful, but maybe.  Hi head of a sperm covered in a magical enzyme layer so you can penetrate the egg.  Hi little fella.

A lady sat down next to me with her lunch and opened her lunchtime reading.  A bible.  Awesome.  And aaawwkkwaaarrd!  I don’t think she noticed that I was busy intellectually dissecting the sperm but it automatically made me uncomfortable.  I mean sure, God “invented” all this stuff so maybe I shouldn’t be uncomfortable.  But *ahem* I was.  (Sidenote: This totally reminded me of the time my bookclub was reading The Happy Hooker.  Note to all:  Don’t read a book called The Happy Hooker on public transportation.)

So I go about my business and up walks a co-worker.

He is a really, really nice neurology resident who is so remarkably unpretentious that he seems neither like a doctor, nor a neurologist.  It had been a while since we had seen each other and it soon became apparent that he’s got the hots for me.  Um, not cause I’m all that …. shut your face.  Cause he’s short.  And it’s a rule that if you’re a short girl who doesn’t look like a mongrel then short men will like you.  So whatevs, he’s being friendly and we’re chatting about our patients and what have you.  As he asks what I’m studying, he looks down and sees this.  Staring him in the face:

Hi doctor who may or may not think I’m cute.  I know you’re a doctor but you’re also a devout Muslim and this is aaawwkkwaaarrd.  Clearly the man has seen a penis, HE IS A DOCTOR!  Not to mention, um … HE’S A MAN!  But it was weird, ok.  So he got all shifty in his stance, walked to buy food and came back with 4 oranges and 5 bottles of apple juice.  Clearly the lunch of champions.  He got paged and asked me to “watch over” his oranges and juice (g’head and make all the penis inferences you would like there).

So I get back to my studies, headphones in place.

Oh testicles, you’re such a funny little creature.  But wait … hello menstruation.  Aren’t you fun.  No you’re not …. DIE BITCH!

I look to my left, two seats down from me at the same table and what do I see?  A priest!  A GD PRIEST!

(Bless me father for I have sinned.  I am sorry I just typed ‘gd priest’ but I can’t think of any other way to truly convey how I feel.  You get it, right?  Ok thanks.  Yeah, 5 hail marys I promise.  Kiss Kiss G-O-D).

Now, this is not a religious hospital and never before had I seen a priest there before.  Why today?  At my table?  As I’m staring at a drawing of the vag?  *ahem* A vagina that he has most certainly never seen!  Sure there are people of faith here …. I mean, c’mon, it’s the chocolate city.  Bible reading on the lunch hour isn’t that strange of a thing.  But a priest?  … A white priest at a hospital where I am generally the ONLY non-African in attendance?  What in the Lord’s name is going on?

(Bless me father for I have sinned.  I am sorry I just said ‘In the Lord’s name’. 5 more hail marys.  Promise!)

~~~~~~~~

The test last night went great.  Thanks to the help of a muslim, a priest and a great set of testicles.

Some weeks ago I was chatting with a friend about the horrific economy.  He lives in San Francisco and unlike most gay men does not have one domestic bone in his body.  He eats out every day and doesn’t believe in cleaning.  Well, like ever.  We were on the phone and he said, “I just got back from Trader Joe’s.  I know I know … I went grocery shopping!”  To which I replied, “Whhuuuuutt?”  He said, “Yeah, I’m worried about The Depression.”  I said, “Seasonal Affective Disorder sinking in already?  Gloomy skies in San Francisco makes you want to grocery shop for the first time in 10 years?  I’m not following.”  He explained, “No. The Depression.  You know, the economy.  I’m trying to watch my spending.”

It is not as though I don’t realize the horrible state of affairs here in America.  Even if I didn’t witness poverty every day living in a city riddled with those without, the news is quick to point out how shitty things are.  He asked, “Do you think it’s affecting you?”  I had to sit back and think about this for a minute.

Living alone on a salary that is not as large as my looming school debt means I am well-aware of every cent I spend.  I live in a SFAH for pete’s sake.  I only buy enough groceries that I can carry at a time and choose very wisely between fruits and veggies, proteins and very, very few snacks (those Trader Joe’s Peppermint Jo Joes were an exception, obvi).  During these abysmal times, I am deeply grateful for my job and my health insurance.  I am grateful to have my bus pass paid for and my utilities included in my amazing $600 rent.  But when a girl wants to add pita chips to her Thanksgiving salad and sees they cost $5/bag (WTF?), I can’t help but notice that things are bleak.

For years I have watched those around me live well beyond their means.  The use of the word “need” surrounding the description of a new pair of shoes or the latest MAC eye shadow or even a new car is not something I have ever understood.  I have never been a frivolous spender.  In my working days in San Francisco, well before the reality of living on loans in grad school kicked in, I certainly went shopping on my lunch hour more than any girl needed to.  But now … I don’t know if my spending habits are a product of my poverty, or a product of reality.  As trivial as it sounds, living with so little in New Orleans and being surrounded by those with NOTHING (forget ‘living with less’ … those people have NOTHING) provided me a deep sense of understanding and appreciation for the word ‘need’.  Now I go to work and see patients suffering from grave illness due to poor health choices, not disconnected from their economic state of affairs.  I understand living without.  For years as I saw my friends buying homes with u-shaped driveways and living in a constant state of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, I never, ever understood it.

My sister’s constant spending is a very glaring need to fill the emotional vacancies in her life.  I, thankfully, find ‘emotional deposits’ in relationships, time spent with friends, introspection and personal growth.  “Things” have never ever satiated my internal needs and for that, I am truly grateful.  I am not an emotional shoppper, and thankfully not an emotional eater.

Of the million things I am grateful for this harvest season, I am deeply thankful to have a good head on my shoulders.  A fairly adjusted sense of self.  A whole sense of being that transcends my spending, my grocery bill and thankfully my waistline.  Sure, the economy is in the crapper.  But each one of us chooses how we spend, on what.  How we teach our children to seek approval and desires through toys that last a season.  Through a trendy pair of jeans that won’t fit in a year.

I have all I need.  Sometimes a sparse fridge with tortillas and peperjack cheese.  A dwindling shoe collection that this recovering Imelda Marcos-in training never, ever thought she’d see.  Maybe all of us can use these times to reflect on how we spend our money and why.  Look within my dear friends.  Instead of feeding the instant need for now, the right-this-minute craving for the new Wii game, get your ass out and volunteer for people really living without.  I promise you that that investment will last for years to come.  Beyond the next style season.

Waiting until the last minute to grocery shop on Thanksgiving is usually a bad idea.  A very bad idea.  However, considering our work schedules, MP and I had no choice.  So we headed out to the “Social Safeway” in Georgetown (where, rumor has it, if you’re there on Saturday nights you can find your way to a party or get yourself a hot date).  We were pleasantly surprised to see the place hadn’t been completely pillaged like the LA Riots had just come to town.  Our shopping list included cornish game hens with fixins, rice, salad goods, asparagus, mashed potato ingredients and of course, wine.  I can handle not making all the “traditional” things on Thanksgiving but it’s really not a meal without mashed potatoes.  Drat!  The man has no mixer so we were prepared to eat nasty pre-made or boxed mashd potatoes.  I wasn’t thrilled about it but it would have to do.

While passing by the meat section, I saw these orange patties that I assumed were salmon burgers.  Oh my goodness, they were not salmon burgers.  They were YAM PATTIES!  I had never seen such a thing but he suggested we whip them together, add some yummy topping and we’d be good to go.  It is important to note that this man has never eaten a yam in his life and generally does not eat much that wasn’t included in his Greek mother’s repertoire.  This was a big moment folks.

When it was time to start the dinner I unwrapped the orange goodness, praying to god they’d turn out as planned.  I placed all the patties in a bowl, added some margarine goodness, whipped ‘em together and spread them in a low pyrex dish.  In a bowl I poured brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, diced pecans, cut in some more margarine and then sprinkled that sweet goodness on top of the yams.  I baked that bad boy for 30 mins. at 350 and holy mary mother of god, they were amazing!  Even the picky ass Greek LOVED them!  We’ve got enough leftovers to last us 4 days and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into that sweet, but healthy goodness.  If you see these things in the market (made by Flanders Burgers out of Arkansas …. random), you must buy them.

Sweaty palms

Heart racing

Elated and nervous

We squeezed into the student union waiting to hear him speak. There I stood with my friend’s mother, an immigrant from Bangladesh, waiting to hear the most monumental speech of my life. In he came to the roar of the applause, the snap snap of camera flashes and the deafening blast of Yes We Can! On that cold February in 2007 each word that left his mouth, flittered through the air buzzing with excitement, entered my ears and seeped into my heart. On the balcony I was surrounded by friends and strangers, rich and poor, white, brown and black; each overwhelmed with their hopes, their dreams and his words. This was it. A sense of new. This is our chance. This is what I have been waiting for.

Sweaty palms

Heart racing

Distracted and busy

Tuesday morning arrived and my work schedule didn’t allow me to focus on the news. Call after call, my to-do list rivaled that of Santa’s and not enough time in the day to think or eat or even breathe. The second I stepped out of that building I was overwhelmed with what I had managed to stuff away all day. This is it. Almost 2 years after his words fed my soul, spoke to my spirit, we would have a verdict. The waiting, the debating, the arguing. The mudslinging, the cover-ups, the gaffes. REMs The End of the World rang through my ears. Or wait, was it Oh Happy Day? I walked in the door, cracked open a beer and refused to look at the polls. It was 7pm EST and I knew staring at the monitor, hitting refresh, refresh, refresh was gonna send me to a sanitorium. I carefully sipped my beer, chatted with friends, made plans, and slowly got ready for an evening with an outcome I could have never expected.

Sweaty palms

Heart racing

Dancing, bus riding

“Thank you bus driver. Drive safe tonight.”

“Oh don’t you worry baby. I’m almost done and then I’ll be celebrating with my family.”

I stepped off the bus and was hit in the face … in the gut really. Not literally, rather by a feeling I was not expecting. There on the corner was a drum circle, cameras flashing, people dancing. Tour buses lined the streets, horns honking, lines forming. Nothing had been announced or decided, yet the feeling in the air was confident … celebratory …. jubilation in its truest form. There I stood among the drum circle and before I realized it, tears rolled down my cheeks.

There was no way to prepare for this. I had no idea it would come on this strong. Without a decision, without numbers, people were electrified already. In the streets danced love, patriotism and hope. Hope comes without a tangible definition. It’s a sense, a feeling, something you just know. Up until that moment I was cautious, hadn’t taken a sip from the hope chalice. But in that moment I stepped into hope, and I wish with all of my might that I could have bottled that energy, capped it in a jar and sent one to each and every one of you.

Sweaty palms

Heart racing

Dancing babies, cocktails enjoyed

Many hours after the results had blared across our tv screens and the candidates had spoken, I went back to that intersection. Back to the energy I longed for while I was inside, letting it all sink in. Horns honking, people climbing trees, letting off fireworks, cheeks streaming with tears, strangers embracing each other. This is what I have dreamt of. This is what our parents speak of. This is not a decision, this is a movement. This is what being American feels like. To feel proud to call this place your own. To rally and dance, to volunteer and register and fund-raise. This is what he talked about. It IS about us. We DID make this happen. This isn’t a one man show, he works for us. We needed him and we wanted him. He told us he was up to the challenge, that he’s dedicated his life to service and I do not doubt him for one second.

I have been blessed to be in the presence of our Great Leader, President-Elect Barack Obama a handful of times. His voice, that distinctive cadence has reverberated the walls, electrified a crowd, motivated an historically lazy generation to get out. Make it happen. Stop bitching and start doing. In fact 14 million more people this election than last, decided to stop bitching and start doing.

An amazing woman said to me last night, “This is about all of us, not white or black. He IS America. The son of an immigrant, the son of a working mother. The child raised by grandparents, the struggling working class making their way to an Ivy League. The lawyer, the politician, the community organizer, the loving father and husband. That is US! He IS America.” More times that I can count, I have felt those very sentiments. Those are exactly the reasons why I voted for him and will continue to stand by him as he walks into a hellava mess. To be able to celebrate in the streets with thousands of other people in the middle of an historic African-American neighborhood here in our Nation’s Capital is an experience I will cherish the rest of my days.

Today I bleed red, white and blue. Today I have hope because I have seen it and lived it, more than I could have expected these past 48 hours. Today I look in the face of every black neighbor, every immigrant on the bus, every African store owner and think, Yes YOU Can! He does personify America but I can’t deny what this day means for 36 million people in this country.

Not that long ago they sat in the back of the bus, used different entrances, hell they couldn’t even vote. It is a day no one could have expected or predicted, but as I look at so many deep brown eyes, so many with dark brown skin, I am deeply humbled. Today, I thank you for marching, for praying, for having hope so many generations ago. You DID overcome. WE overcame. Thank you for your hard work, your painstaking place in our nation’s history. Today we re-write the books. On January 20th, 2009 the man at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will look like you. His is ALL of us but I see you in every wrinkle in his face, every last gray air.

Thank you America for reminding me why this is the greatest nation on earth. Thank you DC for allowing me to celebrate in your streets, dance with your police officers, kiss your strangers.

Today we begin to heal.

I can’t bring myself to post about my lovely date because my mind is with MP.  I really will give you all the scandalous details, I promise, but I’m just a lil pre-occupied today.

After much back-and-forth, his mother and grandma are on their way from Woostah, Mass right now.  His dear yaya came all the way from Greece and his mother who is strong and positive and full of lots and lots of prayer is convinced things will be ok.  So *for now* he will be walking across that stage tomorrow.  His test this morning went eeeh … who’s to know?  Clearly tests and boards and getting a job are the furthest thing from his mind at this point.

So …. his father has a liver biopsy in a couple of hours.  We’re hoping the hospital’s pathology lab can look at the isht on-site and we’ll get the results ASAP.

Odds are the liver business is benign so this is VERY good.  He had a blood clot in his abdomen, which started all this and it looks like the two are completely unrelated.  However, if something does have to happen with the liver, the blood clot may have been a blessing in disguise.  Although he is a very healthy 60-year old man, he’s very fatalistic and MPs poor sister has been in a hospital cot by his bedside, without sleep, food or shower since Wednesday.  He just wants to be with his dad to help assuage his fears.

Graduation festivities will go on and I’ll be there, with or without him, to help celebrate the accomplishments of the rest of our friends.

And lastly, for the first time in over 3 weeks, a YOU-KNOW-WHAT just shimmied across my carpet.  Like, who the fuck do they think I am?  My peripheral vision is stellar and my reflexes would make a ninja shudder with fear.  Once again my flip flops were turned into death machines.

Thank you all for your kind words yesterday.  God, what an emotional roller coaster my life has been this week, right?  Date excitement!  Making out and heavy petting!  Tears and prayers and worry.  Oh my!