My internal weather, and sparkstensions!

I'm trying to get my body's internal clock to function in a more predictable fashion. This involves a gaggle of alarm clocks, agendas and calendars, which I try to make palatable by making damn sure there are kittens and stickers all over them. (Buying books from the Scholastic book order forms was not in the budget when I was in elementary school, so I skipped the Lisa Frank fantasy-fluorescent-ponies-and-pink-leopard-print-notebooks phase...*menacing*: it has finally come to take its course!)

As my luck would have it, the first alarm clock that I got at Honest Ed's was a $16 piece of junk that I tried to reason/wrestle with for 15 minutes before giving up and deciding that it would have been less frustrating if the fake clock face sticker over top of the actual clock face had not been "remove[d] before use". At least there would have been actual numbers, not just flickery streaks suggesting numbers that did not fit together in a way that represented actual times. However, as I am becoming more and more wise to the ways of Honest Ed's, I had bought a second alarm clock at the same time, this one being only $0.99 and having no accompanying instructions, and cryptic buttons on the top reading "Here" and "There". I though it was a puzzle alarm clock, but wouldn't you know it, the thing woke me up pleasantly and on time this morning. It looks like binoculars, and the here and there buttons can digitally "shut" one "eye" or the other with black pixels for no apparent reason, but I don't have to totally get it to be very pleased with it, so finally, one point for Team Sequin Brown.

After Honest Ed's yesterday, I spent several hours cleaning my oven and making cupcakes for our annual sale/customer party/time of awesomeness just days before we take inventory. Then I worked for 6 hours at the store, surrounded by giggles of glee over free cupcakes, the DJ spinning, the customers milling and clustering hungrily at the super-duper reduced items table. It felt awesome to be able to take the time to really help and explain things to folks with questions, amid the mayhem and joy of a jam-packed store. The curly and talented Amanda Marshall puts it well when she sings "Everything is clear when you're inside the tornado/ everything is stable in the eye of the storm/". In all, a fabulous experience, especially since I was so intensely hopped up on sugar and caffeine.

Today started out well, because when I was on the streetcar - running ahead of schedule, might I add - I happened to run into a lovely friend of a friend whose name I unfortunately ALWAYS get wrong by accident, and today I really focussed and got it RIGHT. I psyched myself out for a couple seconds, you know, like, oh gosh, she's so sweet, and indeed memorable, I'm a horrible beast, her name is NOT LISA! Lisa it is NOT! Neurons, reform! no! it's..."Hello, LINDA!" Yessssss! Rock. On. I think the curse has been broken, and I will never blatantly call her Lisa again. Not that Lisa isn't a great name, but it just ain't hers.

Work was great, did a massive post-sale restock, during which I kind of felt like a basement troll because our fluorescent light tubes were acting up and it was dark and cold down there and my nose was running and I always do the hunch-n-flinch dance when I am in the basement because I fear hitting my head on the pipes. Tropical Storm UTERUS blew in from the South shortly after restocking, but since I have been so conscious of times and dates recently, I was aware of what was to come. Apocolyptic PMS emotions also tend to alert me, as well as Violet-Beauregard-style bloating and disproportionately angsty reactions to my inability to find any one magazine at Shoppers Drugmart or Book City that speaks to me wholistically. I bought myself chocolate ginger nuggets and took some ibuprofen, and plan to get into my bed with a book by 11:30pm.
Note to self: begin writing next hit single, "Menstrual Lady Slumber Party for One".

In closing, I witnessed a most delightful and beguiling hair phenomenon upon the head of a very nice customer today, which was that her hair shimmered at me. Throughout her shining black tresses were what appeared to be a faint scattering of single metallic hairs, in purple and even verigated red, orange and gold! I tried to concentrate on the topic at hand, but my hindbrain was trying to comprehend the pretty pretty hairs. Suddenly my whirring mind skipped a beat and there it was, the obvious answer:
WOW. Maybe she's just MAGIC.
I felt reverent, and this luckily gave me a millisecond to get back on track and help the lady out. Once all questions had been answered I complemented her hair and she told me that the glitteries were teeny semi-permanent extensions she had had done when she was in Bankok a few weeks ago. Just when I thought technology was out to ruin us all, a heartwarming discovery is made in the field of beauty salon research that does not involve lasers, depillation or pinching!

I also believe in magic, just to be clear on that.

Throwing around some ideas for a Fat amusement park

If I was going to make a fat amusement park, as per my internal brainstorm this morning in the shower, it would include all of the following amazing features:

-A really elaborate water park with bigger tubes that you can actually drape yourself into instead of just lying on it with one bum cheek kind of in the hole

-Vast bouncy castles

-Rubberized walkways, so walking all over the place is friendlier to the feet and knees, as well as really snazzy scooter things for folks with limited mobility

-Dressup photo studios where the costumes actually fit and you have the option of posing in front of a green screen

-Obviously seatbelts/safety latch things on rides that fit larger bodies and don't make it impossible to breathe/scream with glee on rides

-None of that "I'll guess your weight and you can win a prize" crap. Also, no petting zoos or aquariums, because I run the park and I think those are not cool.

-Tickets won in games can be redeemed at the park's fabulous boutique: clothes, fat positive books, music, snacks, etc.

-Fantastic restaurants AS WELL AS traditional amusement park fare AS WELL AS areas to picnic (although angry geese congregating is innevitable)

-Fat walk of fame

-Mist areas for cooling off when it's a scorcher out

-Amorphous benches (?)

-Sensational dance parties

-Theme days

I'm slowing down here with ideas, mostly because I am getting really tired. To be honest, I am not a huge fan of roller coasters, nor do I have money to build an amusement park, but what I do have is a wild imagination and a blog!

Keep On Livin'

And I lived to tell the tale!

Here I am, alive and okay and plowing through some very fluffy Black Forest Cake which I have dubbed "breakfast".
I have decided that today will be a faux birthday, due to the nature of my activities: Wake up at quarter to one in the afternoon. Play with cat until she attempts to claw out my eyes with love. Eat too much cake in attempt to obliterate it "because there is no room for it in the frige". Take a moment to fart with glee. Go buy fancy cat food and potentially one of those SIGG bottles that everyone has (I'm tired of using a waxed paper cup or mug that can spill while working) with newly acquired Guilt Money. Go to friend's house for pre-planned debrief snuggles.
See? It's just like a birthday except it doesn't have to remind me that I am about due for a yearly physical, and I am not covered in ribbons and bows.

So yesterday was intensive.
I was filled with glee when my Best Friend of LIFE returned home from her East Coast March Break Extravaganza and we shared some knock-off-brand maccaroni & cheez and esophagus-melting coffee. Of course this meant that I left the house late to go see my therapist, who I have not seen since I broke my foot a year ago. So of course I was late, and she had already started a session with another client, so I waited for an hour, which I deserved because I am always late. I got to hang out with my therapist's lovely elderly mom and extremely friendly lap dog (She runs her practice from her home in far North Scarborough, hence the difficulties of me trying to maneuver my broken self on the TTC over there while I was wearing the "Shortie Walker" cast). We had a decent session, and she quesioned my motives for going to see my dad, to which I had no definitive response. While I thought about it blankly, she went to grab a frozen roast beef from the other room to thaw for her dinner. I am mildly worried about her response to my "new" job (last time I had a session with her, I worked at Sbux)... being that our focus in our sessions is on sexual abuse, she referred to me working at a sex shop as "the OTHER issue", and I kind of took offence because I am really proud of the transformative and educational work that I do, but we know each other well enough that I think we can have some good talks about it. A lot can change in a year. A lot can change in five years, too.

While my therapist thought it was not - to put it mildly - the best idea to go to dinner at my dad's, I freaking did it anyway, because I felt it rude to cancel 2 hours before I had said I would be there. I got dropped off at Fairview Mall, where went in to Sephora and put on some makeup, and then took the bus straight to my dad's. Although he didn't make food and had eaten dinner plus a few beers at his neighbours' place before I came, he had the kindness to pick me up a delicious beef roti and an ENTIRE black forest cake (not my fave, but it's cake), which I ate while he watched. My step-mother is still on Weight Watchers (I have at least a few entries worth of rants on the rediculous idea of "food points" that will come in the near future) and my dad is Diabetic now, so the remainder of the cake came home with me in the end, but I digress. The first 20 minutes were tense and eye-contactless, as it was just me and my dad, him chain smoking and avoiding eye contact while he listed his three or four feelings on "the subject", and me summarizing why I didn't really know why I was there, and that I was happy they were getting married but that I did not feel that it was appropriate for me to attend the event. When my step-mom arrived, the conversation got flowing, mostly catching up on the births, deaths and home rennos of the past 5 years, and the disproportionately important bonding fact that I now drink coffee. I felt lured in to the world of little neices I have never met, missing my step-sisters and hearing all about everyone's lives. I looked at pictures of their trip to Sri Lanka and saw so many beautiful smiling relatives I have never met. I stood strong on my NO vote to the wedding, though.

As often as possible, I took the oportunity to underline my Flamboyant QUEERNESS, which I hoped would open some doors to conversing about that. Not so much. They attempted to give me a stereo system, and invite me to an Easter shindig of some kind. My dad claimed that he is going blind (which he is not) and made a bullseye estimation of the cost of my glasses, and in the end, nervously handed me a hundred dollars and told me to "get some cat food and some new shoes". I thanked them. We left it at the statement that it was nice and that they would love me to come visit more, and that I "might do that". Hugs at the elevator, a long transit ride home. Crocheting to ease my fidgets, and also to someday beget a bangin' mermaid sweater.

Not sure how I feel about it all. Still had nightmares all night, but of a slightly different variety.
Time for scheduled friend snuggles, over and OUT <3

The ol' door-bell-dog-droppings-on-fire maneuver

That is how the end of my day went:
Like a flaming poo bag.

We've all seen this prank played out in popular media - one vengeful and/or bored character rings their target's doorbell and leaves their stoop-n-scoop surprise on fire on the other character's porch. This person comes to the door, usually in a robe for some reason, and finds flames waiting for them, and they do the natural thing, which is to try to stomp out the flames with their favourite indoor slippers, thus entangling themselves in a whirlwind of smoke and poo.

Of course, that is not literally what happened, but it sure felt like it. Closing up shop with with a fabulous coworker of mine took an hour and a half tonight, which is triple the amount of time it usually takes, due to an unfortunate compunding of errors into what is known as an "untangleable clusterfuck". Even though our sleuthery was admirable and we did figure out the root of our problem with the help of my dear old friend, Mathematics, we were thwarted in the end by Technology (not such a dear friend to either of us, it seems).

Literally TWO SECONDS after that whole fiasco had been dealt with to the best of our collective abilities and we had hugged out our fears about getting fired, my phone rang, the screen displaying a number I was unfamiliar with. Being a FOOL, I picked up the phone, and apparently my face conveyed "instant miserableness". On the other end of the line was the voice of a man who has historically been the source of a great deal of emotional pain and abuse trauma in my life, and who of course is conveniently a very close blood relation. We haven't seen hide nor hair of one another in five years, which was suiting me fine, aside from the occasional pangs of guilt so ingrained in many an abuse survivor. Now he's getting married, and wants me to be part of the wedding party. This sounds like a great set up for a dramatic movie plot, but alas, it is my actual life. Someone must have told him that we can't go zero-to-sixty like that (or rather Denying my Experience to Wedding Party) because he presented the very not-like-him idea of getting together to talk things out before such a huge event. And because I have a VERY difficult time saying "no" to the few people who scare me, the long and the short of it is that I will be eating dinner and "talking about things" with my father and step-mother tomorrow evening. After hanging up, I called back, and while I was unable to stand up for myself in any real way like saying "no" or "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but this terrifying idea is for me extremely unhealthy, convoluted, oversimplified and massively FUCKED UP," I did manage to let them know that I am no longer a vegetarian, in hopes of at least getting some amazing spicy chicken or beef curry out of the deal.

Blargh.
Thank goodness my day starts out with going back into counselling, followed by an unrelated event potentially involving mimosas.

Just a Hint

As someone who dislikes the concept of conformity, I believe that there are exceptions to most societal "rules" in life. That said, there is one excellent guideline that I think people need to hear loud and clear, one that will save everyone a lot of needless annoyance and or embarassment, and perhaps even avoid dismemberment in certain very frought instances:

Don't ask strangers if they are pregnant.
Just don't do it, okay? Here are some further details on the topic of asking strangers if they are pregnant, in case the reasons not to do so are not immediately clear to you.

-->If someone is pregnant and they want you to know, or feel that you need to know, they will probably tell you.
-->If someone is pregnant and they don't feel that you need to know, they have no obligation to tell you.
-->If someone is not pregnant, but you think they are, they will very likely not appreciate you asking them if they are pregnant, even if you are congratulating them.
-->The ebb and flow of one's reproductive organs is rarely a good stranger conversation starter. You wouldn't ask someone in the elevator their scrotal temperature or the viscosity of their private mucous, so don't inquire about any buns in the oven.
-->Empire waistlines tend to make a lot of people look pregnant. Do not use fashion as an indicator. Also do not use a healthy glow (excersizing, a really excellent roll in the hay, getting an awesome mark on a mid term and/or wearing blush or bronzer will do that too), unique food cravings (pickles and peanut butter are fantastic, don't knock it till you've tried it) or Fat Pride as excuses to intrude onto someone's privacy.
-->If you are asking me if I am pregnant because you tried to hit on me and did not succeed, and after you acertained that I am not married, vehemently do not have a boyfriend and need supportive shoes assumed that I am playing hard to get because I am pregnant (?), you are not catching my effing chubby lesbo drift, and no, I'm not pregnant. Effer.

A wonderful woman named Bridget, who I used to work with when I painted murals, says "Nope, I'm not pregnant. I'm just fat: I LIKE PIE." And to that I say "here, here!"
Holler if you love and respect people's bodies of all curvacious forms, pregnant or not, and think that round is beautiful.

3.14

Happy Pi day, folks!

Today being the 14th day of the 3rd month, I made sure pay as many kinds of punny homage to Pi as possible. This involved sharing a whole pizza pie with my co-worker, eating delightful home-made apple pie at my best buddy's parents house, and of course then feeling rather round and circularly full, which could involve pi if you wanted to go about figuring out my radius, bellybutton to hip. I offered mathimatical gifts of thanks in the form of 2 crocheted hyperbolic planes I cranked out, a canary yellow one and a pepto pink one, to Mister Math&Pie himself.

I also made sure to call a pretty math teacher I've gone on several dates with to wish her many happy returns of the Pi Day. She told me she had crocheted me a tiny, sparkly hyperbolic plane! I feel like that might be a sign that she likes me, but my signal-reading abilities have atrophied slightly in the dating department, so I'm not really sure. You know that tragic sound that happens when you take a funky jumpsuit out of storage that was your mom's in the mid 80's and she's all: 'Oh, that? I haven't seen that in ages. Gosh my waist was tiny. You like it? I don't think it would fit y-" and then you pounce on the elastic part like HA! it's gonna stretch and I am going to be so styletastic.... and then you stretch the elastic part and the elastic has rotted and that's when the sound happens (sometimes accompanied by the old rubber disintegrating smell)? That is the sound my dating prowess would make right now. And I don't care how Debbie Downer that may have come out, I think it's a pretty elaborately fabulous analogy with a light at the end of the tunnel: Now that the tiny mom-waist has had its last moments in the sun, a new and roomier jumpsuit of possiblilities has opened. (I really fed that poor, innocent analogy to the wolves there.)

In other, several-years-belated news: The first episode of Alias, starring Jennifer Garner, was really intense! I just watched it on DVD (Trend Watch: everybody I know is watching TV on DVD now! This rocks for me because our TV can't communicate with the outside world at all, but plays DVDs and VHS successfully most of the time!). I used to watch Alias all the time with my mother, and through the genius that is not entirely unlike the Circle Of Life, my best chum's boyfriend's mom gave her the first season to watch and now I am reliving every wig-clad butt-kicking moment anew (*Elton John sings softly in the background, a cartoon baby lion cub is held aloft in a ray of sun for all the kingdom to behold*)

I have a day off tomorrow, and I am going to go buy some new shoes, as all of mine have rapidly growing holes in them. I am also going to do laundry and make a lasagna to take to work for lunches next week and potentially look for a dress pattern for my honorary teenage daughter's prom dress....holy crap, I'm a grown-up. I didn't see it coming.

Appearances can be deceiving

It all started with Capicola.

Wandering around the 24-hour overpriced grocery store like a lost child with holes in her rainboots, I discovered that Capicola was on sale. HOT Capicola. It hooked me with the little hot pepper "spicy" symbol, and its physical proximity to the sliced Salami, which is my guilty pleasure, but alas, not a sale item this time 'round. After a long day of work with squishy feet inside my favourite crappy-but-cute boots and my mental snapshot of my scribbled budget in my head, I decided to take the plunge and root for Team Capicola - it sounded familiar and I was feeling just frustrated enough with grocery shopping to decide for no good reason not to worry that it might be ham. I detest ham, and pretty much any pork product that registers as pork-ish to my taste buds or stomach. Foreshadowing is not really needed at this point (especially if you are someone who knows that Capicola is pretty much fancy, circular ham) but I will add at this moment that as I left the supermarket and spied a cab in the parking lot with its "available" light on, I was more than a little effing miffed after trying to leave the shopping cart in a spot where it would not roll into traffic with my hands full only to discover that there was nobody in the driver's seat and I had to hobble out to the street in the rain with all my bags flopping everywhere. Empty cars masquerading as ready cabs! Pork lulling me into a false sense of security with a pretty name! I didn't even think to read the label on the back, and only noticed its porcine origin when I was halfway through making my lunches for the next few days.

In other, more wonderful appearances-can-be-deceiving news, I must say that I was more than pleasantly surprised with EVERYTHING about my porno pick du jour, *Suburban Dykes*. Working in a fabulous sex shop has so many, many benefits, including the fact that watching lots of porn is truly part of my commitment to up-to-date product knowledge as it leads to being able to help customers find what they want. This "homework" has lead me to watch a huge range of Adult films, if you will, which I hadn't been nearly as open to in years past. Blah blah blah, I am too stoked about *Suburban Dykes* to delay any further! I was not aware when I borrowed this movie that it was actually made in 1990. Sometimes it is hard to tell with porn packaging, to be honest MANY movies look like they are from 1990...but this one actually was. Nothing makes me more jazzed for life than some totally out-there 90's fashion, and can I say that seeing Nina Hartley in an electric blue lace leotard and black black floor-length tulle skirt with mega-teased hair AND A PURPLE DOUBLE BAUBLE HAIR ELASTIC kind of just made my life. And I haven't even mentioned what her character's wife was wearing, or the fact that their butch third lover actually tries to GRASP ON to the baubled ponytail during some of the action. Speaking of hair, i also adored the full on mullet (not to be confused with a 2009 hipster mullet) being rocked by one of the main characters' neighbours during a sex-on-the-bench-press-in-the-garage scene, so much so that I almost rethought my stance against the naked-save-for-gym-socks look just for her. Almost. Gosh, hair joy totally abounded in this film, and the radiance of the full-n-fabulous bush belonging to the character "Pepper" even made Nina's bordeaux velvet scrunchie in the hot tub scene not only forgivable, but kinda stylin'. Oh yeah, and I guess I could be pressed to say the sex part was okay, but I still give 2 thumbs up to this short and endearing film, and I may have to make it the first piece in my permanent porn collection. PS speckled finish mirror walls with hi-gloss mauve baseboards!!! Just sayin'.

In breif news chunks, I noticed that today in the Metro free newspaper there was a short news story on "The Midnight Knitter", a mysterious person (or people) knitting wee sweaters for saplings somewhere in New Jersey. Being someone who stood in a book shop and visually devoured almost all of a Knit-Bombing book of urban yarn-graffiti-style culture jamming on my lunch hour the other day, I am rooting for the Midnight Knitter and their posse. I just found it amusing that it made it into the paper in Toronto, and that the writer seemed like they were trying to keep a stern face on while writing about it.

Also, Kate from Jon and Kate Plus Eight is on DANCING WITH THE STARS now? She's got the extensions flowing and those funky little ballroom dance dresses. I only know because I bought People Magazine today to look at Academy Awards outfits and Kate's on the front yelling "WHY CAN'T A MOM HAVE FUN?" Reality TV has become a strange loop now, where people attempt to ressurect their fame from past reality TV messes into better fame through other Reality TV. What I want to see is awful Reality TV stars trying to start their own soap operas or game shows or something. Let's get the cross-genre pollination going, people!

mix! intertwine! blend! combine!

I want to collect up a kind of fountainous list of writings, art, storytelling, performance and poetry coming from the experiences of mixed race folks. I read ravenously, write with my guts akimbo, paint wildly and don't often enough bump into created characters whose experiences of their identities come from often dichotomized places, mishmashes, mixtures of so many experiences but also entirely new ones.

Bein' mixy: there is no single way to describe "the" experience of being mixed, even though I have been asked to, and then been seen as difficult for not being able to answer. A close friend once asked me something about my understanding of myself as a mixed race person as a child, and when I said I guess I never even got a glimpse of the concept until I was older. I just knew I was "different" from everybody else, but there were lots of things that made me different, so how was I supposed to unpack that bundle? Unless they, too, come from mixed ancestry, parents don't often sit their li'l mixy kids down and say things like "mmmkay. So you're 'mixed race' and sometimes people might not get that. People can be racist, colourist, snobby, bring up Tiger Woods a lot, ask you 'what you are', ask you 'where you're from' as a way to mean 'why are you the colour you are', claim you aren't _____ enough, claim you're too ________, and they may frequently dis' your wild hair! But you know what? Fuck 'em, you rock just they way you are." (Although I might give my future little mixy kid(s) a pep talk of that nature, but with more practical tools and less swearing some day in the future when they exist)

At present, my mixy list is fairly wee, but here it is. If you have things to add, please post them in a comment, I would love to check out new stuff!


Caucasia by Danzy Senna
Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo
Colonize This! (An anthology)
Consensual Genocide by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Fireweed Mixed Race Issue

Double Agent - (song!) by Amanda Marshall

...And there has to be more, as these are just things here in my room!

(Goodness, my room! what a great segue into a closing statement of "I need to tidy my room, post haste, if I ever in good conscience want anybody other than my cat to be interested in hanging out in it with me.")

Dazzle of the Day: SPRING!

What a stunner of a sunny day today is! A dazzling dose of Vitamin D really gives me one heck of a boost. I slept in until our buddy the Sun was at its peak, dozing in a big fatty of a sunbeam with Ms. Violet, my kitty; Then, honest to goodness I got up, stretched myself and showered off my weird dreams.

Today being International Women's Day, I thought it would be a good idea to get out there in my "F*** Patriarchy!" shirt and go visit my mom at her new workplace, bearing cookies. I hung out there for a good hour and a half, striking up light and intermittant conversation with my fabulous mom and her fantastic co-worker about feminist pornography, crocheted mathematical models of Hyerbolic Planes, warrior goddesses, tax forms, babies and, of course, the frozen tundra of my queer love life. But we all agreed that spring can bring nothing but good things in the latter department, and the Vitamin D coursing through my eyelids let me bask in that possiblity as I streetcarred back to my neighbourhood and let them get back to helping customers pick out stylish upholstry and wade in welcome-to-the-neighbourhood flowers and new filing techniques for paperwork.

Spring just sparkles with renewal, and while that renewal sometimes means the potent waft of defrosting dog poo deposits emerging from their hiding spots in last season's snow banks, I'm still 100% pro spring! Just watch where you step, Squooshy-gooshy patches abound.

[flow of thoughts into next paragraph: Spring --> Fresh ---> Fresh Prince --> Aunt Viv -->the ORIGINAL Aunt Viv]

This evening, I have had the joy of watching several episodes from the first season of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and I can't get over how much I love Janet Hubert-Whitten, the original Aunt Viv. She was fierce, glam, hilarious and so expressive! No offence to the actress who played Aunt Viv in the later episodes, but I find it so weird when shows switch new actors into a role that has been played by someone else for a long time. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for the new actor or actress to fill those shoes, but to be honest, it peeves me. Original Aunt Viv! This woman is so sincere! She makes me want to do my hair like her! (It could happen!)

In related thoughts, I am so glad how often I am reminded of my emense respect for Auntie figures and Mother figures, blood related or chosen family. I have been thinking about all the women in my life who have supported me and not only held my world together when I didn't know how, but who helped to create that world for me in the first place. As I mentioned before, I love my mom something fierce, for her totally unique sense of humour, all her protective energies, how much thought she gives to everything she says, her creativity and all the quirks and talents that come from being a sassy single mom for most of my life. I also have a vivacious, irreverant, madly creative and whirlwindishly enthusiastic auntie who thinks of me as her daughter, too, who has lived all over the world and has entrepreneured herself in such directions as jewelry and tea sales, wholesale distribution of human hair for extensions as well as spandex lingerie erotic dance costumes, unique dog jacket fashions and her own employment agency.

Family is such a complicated concept for so many people, and choosing one's own people out of all the spirits we are tied to by blood or karma or fate or happensance has been such a liberating journey for me and so many people I have known throughout the past five years especially. I just spoke to my father for the first time in five years yesterday, and realized how much I have grown and changed, and how far I have come in my healing journey since our last (yucky) conversations so long ago. I've accumulated a couple of amazing, magical chosen sisters along the way, snuggled a small brood of fantastic teenage ducklings under my wings and really valued being able to cherish and nurture such deep relationships in the space created by a lot of tangled roots coming undone.

I feel my heart thawing out in a pretty golden way.
It makes me wanna shoop-shoop -shoop!