We still have separate bathrooms for boys and girls…That statement highlights a rural school’s marquee as I head to a country general store.

Strangely, or maybe not, my first thought: What a bad sentence. It doesn’t convey what I know is intended. If I didn’t

know what’s going on regarding trans folks choosing the bathroom that fits their identity, instead of their birth certificate, I’d be thinking, yeah, most places do have both male and female bathrooms. So what’s new? Is that really something that needs to be advertised in huge letters in front of your school? Doesn’t this facility have something better to announce? Like: Academic Excellence Valued Here! Or, Girl Basketball Champs 2016! Or even, Pancake Fund Raiser Friday night.

But I know what they’re getting at with their either bad or likely coded sentence. It irritates me on two levels: First—and I’m not proud of this, as a writer I get disturbed when sentences don’t accurately express the intended meaning—especially when I’m guilty of it.  Secondly, and what’s more important, I got a snapshot of the kind of education those children are receiving in that school, both in their English classes and in the formation of their attitudes.

My stomach hurts.

I motor on through the gently rolling and bursting green wooded paradise. I love this land–it usually relaxes me, though not today. I also love rural general stores. They carry at least one  of everything. If not everything, something else that could substitute, in a pinch, for what is needed. I’m doing spring repairs at our cabin, and I’m in search of wood glue. I find it and head for the cash register. In front of me is a man, I’d gauge in his early fifties, normal looking—whatever that means—talking to the store clerk. I don’t really hear her comments, but he’s going on, agitated about bathrooms. I figure the schoolyard sign has got folks talking—probably not about bad sentences. As I get closer and tune in to what he’s saying, I hear him preaching about who should be using which bathroom, and who should NOT, and the good old days when…I get his drift.

I think about a good friend of mine. She has a grandson in grade school who’s trans and all the problems that child and the parents are facing, and will face, as s/he grows up. Attitudes stick in hard-dry clay, for generations, especially out here in rural land. I stand there, horrified, with what feels like a rock in my stomach, hoping there aren’t any trans kids in this area. Wishful thinking.

The guy gets done with his purchase and turns and sees me behind him. I’m in my working jeans, T-shirt, and very short hair. He looks me up and down and says, like I had been part of the conversation: “And, if you want to pee in the girls bathroom, you’d better grow out your hair.

I say, “Around here, I’d rather use the woods.”

He looks at me like I’m from another world…I guess I am.

(To learn about my secret life, scroll down to: “My Dirty Little Secret.”)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For some, it’s bumper sticker messages, for me, it’s T-shirts with wisdom. Bumper stickers are a pain if you change your mind—they’re sticky and hard to get off. Even worse, you might cause an accident by distracting another driver who should be stepping on his brakes—like the guy behind you. Then there are the bumper edicts that challenge my civility–communiqués that I’d likely slap on the back of my vehicle would have that effect on way too many peeps…

Okay, the truth is squirming out of me: The reason I changed from car stickers to T-shirts was that—back in the day, mid-nineties—I wore my convictions on my bumper. The back fender directive that converted me to T-shirts was: We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used To It—we barely made it out of Georgia alive.

But a T, that’s another thing. If you change your mind or happen to be driving through Georgia and get out to pee and fill your tank, you merely throw on a cover-up or change your shirt. It’s that easy.

The Internet is my temptress. Like my wife, it knows my weaknesses. It keeps tossing up beautifully colored Ts with blurbs that reflect my convictions, delighting me, causing me to drool and pull out my credit card. And, like most addicts, I feel guilty in the morning when the UPS truck shows up (yes, I overnight them) with a soft package and my name on it—especially if my wife is home.

I write this as my way of confession, standing up and admitting my addiction, exposing my dirty little secret, all in hopes it will bring some control to my life.

As I sit here, making my confession public, my heart starts to thump. I see the USP truck out the window, driving slowly…

Will it stop here?

Did you know, they now put messages on sweat pants? This could be my first pair arriving. I need to catch the driver before he can ring the doorbell and wake my wife. She needs her sleep.

(To read about  who’s  following in my footsteps, scroll down to: “The Sleepover.”)

Fast asleep, my wife pops up, hacking. She’s aspirated her spit—she insists I call it, saliva. Whatever. I reach up out of my slumber to show my support by patting her back, even though I know that’s of no real help. Shows I care and that I’m not upset that she woke me up at 5:48 on a Sunday morning. Actually, being jerked out of a dream was a good thing: I couldn’t find my coat, then my keys, then where I parked my car—way too much like my waking life.

But then, the coughing brings in our seven-year-old granddaughter—a sleepover—into our room. She crawls in bed between us wearing her princess something-or-another nightgown. How she sleeps in that scratching tu-tu thing… Anyway, she lets me know she’s not a princess she’s a Siamese kitty, pretending to be a princess. And would I like to be the mommy Siamese cat? I’ve not had my coffee, which makes me less than the smartest grammy, causing me to say something really stupid, like, “I’m a white Persian cat.” I open one eye to see baby Siamese kitty’s one eyebrow hovering over me—raised. I’ve seen that eyebrow before; it’s my mother’s. That snaps me to, and I agree that I’m the mommy Siamese. I shush her because I see that her other grammy—the one that woke us up—is now back asleep. That grammy has sleeping problems, so I’m trying to be compassionate—at 5:57 a.m., without my coffee and a scratchy Siamese kitty in bed with me. The Kitty raises my mother’s eyebrow once again and says, “At this point, this is when my parents getup.” I swear, the tone of voice that comes with the eyebrow has made its way through the generations…Or she’s channeling my deceased mother.

“I’ll meet you out there,” I tell her, as I pull my arm out from the covers and gesture to the universe. The eyebrow leaves but–it seems–is back within seconds, hovering, flicking my face with her Siamese paw. I get up. Don’t want to wake up the alarm clock grammy, who seems not to notice what’s happening to me. I think, she’s faking it…but I’m not judging.

My granddaughter and I meet out by the TV. She wants to watch Netflix. We have Netflix but it takes two remotes and a skill set I don’t possess without two hours of coffee and staring aimlessly. I say, it’s Mickey Mouse Club or nothing—only one click on one remote. A big Siamese groan fills the room. But I deftly get to Mickey fast enough to make the kitty forget about Netflix. That’s when she asks for breakfast…It’s only 6: 17a.m. Who can be hungry!

The coffee pot was set to go, so I push the button and open the refrigerator and spot a container of yogurt and an orange. When I return to her and Mickey, she’s working on a book, well, actually it’s her second book this morning. She’s fast at work writing and illustrating her novels. One of the stories is about the four elements and what they do for us. Good grief! The second book is less intellectual, but entertaining—more her grammy’s style.

When she’s done with her books, she asks me to send them to the publisher for publication, which, in her world, means stapling them together. Then she preforms an author reading. (She’s come to mine, so she knows the gig.) So, now, she’s ask me to build a library for all her works, hopefully, she says, it will be done before she gets dressed–I don’t know why she wants to do this, perhaps the scratchy nightgown is getting to her.

She seems not to have noticed that I didn’t get her library done, didn’t even get it started. I’m sitting with my coffee, a stapler, and watching Mickey Mouse. She gets on the computer, deciding to go digital, and creates pictures, titles, hitting the print button and collates (yes, she says, collates—where does she get these words?) her pages reading her third book for publication. The morning whizz is eating, creating, and collating when the printer dies…Geez Us!

Now she’s ready for building her library…Damn it, where is her other Grammy…I think my compassion has it limits. It’s now 9:03. I get our two puppy Cavapoos–those are real dogs–and head for for the bedroom, in quest of the Sleeping Grammy.

(On a totally different subject, scroll down to: “My Tits Were Out to Ruin My life.”)

 

 

A riddle: How many body parts can the medical community chop off or dig out and toss away before there’s nothing more to give and the organism ceases to be able to function. (Warning: Not all riddles contain humor.) And I don’t know the answer or do I really want to know. Since my wife’s second breast cancer diagnosis and the removal of both breasts, this question lurks in every dark corner of our lives. Her first cancer, a sarcoma, cost her 3 ribs. The second type of cancer, thyroid, cost her her thyroid gland, and of course, now both breasts.

In the hospital, before she went into surgery, my wife whispered to me that I’d gotten a “lemon” for a wife. I told her I’ve had my share of “lemons” but she definitely wasn’t one of them! In fact, having her as my partner and wife has enriched every moment of my life, and has for 26 plus years. She’s the kindest and most loving person I’ve ever known. Ultimately, life isn’t about body parts, is it? (My gallows psychic creeps in on Vincent Price breath and mocks, “unless there aren’t enough of them.”)

Being a writer, I keep trying to come up with a food, a flowery plant, or whatever that would best replace the idea of a “lemon.” Maybe it’s because we’re waiting for the call from the hospital regarding the pathology report, all I can come up with is: a frosty mug of Indian Pale Ale on a hot summer day and a package of salted pistachios…Or, in winter, a hot bath with a glass a cabernet…

She’s my adult beverage.

(To read about the shit that crouches in dark dank corners of my mind, scroll down to: “Chewing on Chocolate-Flavored Plastic Dog Bones.”)

When I read a novel, I’m annoyed when the author backs off or sugarcoats their characters feelings or thoughts. For me, it’s like chewing on a dog’s chocolate flavored plastic bone. So being honest, nakedly honest, is how I attempt to approach my fiction writing…but it’s not easy.

After my daughter read the first chapter of my novel, “Twisted Minds,” she informed me that she was “disturbed” by it. I, knowing it is a graphically sick scene, but not wanting to assume what she was exactly referring to, asked what she meant by that. Her reply was—I paraphrase—because all that sick stuff came from my mother’s head. When others have given me similar feedback, I have a way of backing off from this kind of unwanted insight by saying, “I take no responsibility for what my characters say or do.” But it really doesn’t fool anyone, at least, not for too long. Through fiction, I’m able to get in touch with the darker side of human nature and the shit that crouches in dark dank corners of my mind.

All this brings me to my intention to write—for a while at least—about things that I can’t pawn off on my fictional characters in the novel I’m presently writing. It’s the kind of stuff that reaches out and trips me, smacks me down, keeping me from my current novel.

And maybe, someone else who reads this and is bushwhacking through cancer’s morass will find this helpful. Hopefully, at least some of my thoughts and feelings will resonate.

Last week, I already started this process. I’ll be back.

Please leave comments, your experiences or grunts, if so inspired.

(To read about how I lost my novel, scroll down to: (“Losing My Novel in a Dark Dank Corner.”)

 

Ordinarily, I carry the novel I’m working on in my head everywhere I go. Now, it seems lost somewhere in a dark corner of my cranial cavity. I can’t find it. And damn it, it’s a time in my life when I really need it! I need a distraction from my reality. At least a break, now and then…something to cool off my feelings, my sadness, my fear.

There’s only a few days left before my wife’s surgery, bilateral mastectomy. Why do I feel like stealing her away on a round-the-world trip, instead of being grateful we live in a place where she can get good medical care. I didn’t put a question mark on that last sentence because the question is rhetorical. The fact is, I hold both thoughts in my head with equal conviction, equal weight, equal distress.

We both got our mammograms on the same day. When we were leaving the medical facility, I remember thinking that if one of us had to have a malignancy, I hoped it would be me. I didn’t want my wife to have to go through yet another cancer. Not only that, if a mastectomy was in store, I could handle it better than she. It wouldn’t bother me as much, probably wouldn’t bother me at all—other than the fact that I had cancer.

When I was a kid, starting to develop, I was upset; not only were my breast developing, they were getting too big; something most girls wished for; something I did not.

So, I bound my breasts.

I didn’t want boys to see me as a girl, instead of a good athlete, one of the first to be picked for any team. Not only that, my boobs just didn’t seem relevant. Still don’t…

But, I love my wife’s breasts.

And I hate how bad she feels losing them. I hate how bad I’m feeling that they’ll be gone.

(To read about where you find yourself on the way to somewhere else, scroll down to: “Something Moved My Cheese.”)

 

 

 

I count down the days. Eleven. I will be driving my wife to the hospital to have them remove her breasts, yes breasts. Both need to go. She has chosen to go flat, not get implants. I understand and agree, having talked about and explored the option of prostheses.

I feel like I’m somehow part of a devious, horrible plan. Like driving an innocent to a torture chamber. I know that’s a hyperbole. Over dramatic, probably even a sacrilege. I should be thinking of it as something that will save her life. I try to hold that thought. But, I know how difficult this will be for her. She’s been surprised at her reaction to the loss, how she’ll view her body after, how she’ll look in clothes without them, and how it will be for me.

And the loss of her breasts is of consequence to me. They have excited me; they comforted me. They are a part of the woman I love.

It will be an adjustment for both of us; another bump in the road we travel together.

(To read what’s behind writers, or at least this one, scroll down to: “When Do Writers Write: Amended.”)

Last December my wife got a breast cancer diagnosis. She has had cancer two other forms of cancer, a sarcoma and thyroid. Well, to be more accurate, this will be her fourth cancer since she had a breast cancer tumor, earlier. This is her second breast tumor. In April, she’ll be having bilateral mastectomies.

In last Saturday’s Scribbles I wrote that I couldn’t write when I’m upset. I’m going to amend that statement: I have difficulty with my fiction writing. My mind does not want to hold the many details necessary to advance my mystery/thriller plot. However, I’ve realized I can write about what’s going on in my life, like I did in my miserable teen years. I was frigging prolific! Like Dear Diary on steroids. That was also my Poetry Period, where I put my angst to rhyme. I’ll probably not go there with the rhyme shit. At my age that would be really weird! But maybe it will be helpful to write about how being the wife of my wife feels, going through her life partner’s double mastectomy. I would guess there’s not much written from the lesbian perspective. I have feelings and thoughts I never ever would have guessed I’d have in this situation.

More next week, my watery eyes make is difficult to see the computer screen.

(To read the first post on this subject, scroll down to: “When Do Writers Write.”)