Well, I found the brass ring, now what do I do with it?

So, many of you know that I have been interviewing for a unit manager position in a prison for a while. To be exact, I have interviewed 5 times. According to C, who has interviewed 6 times for lieutenant, that is not very many times. According to my way of life (it really is all about me, right??), I should have been promoted about two interviews before now.

I interviewed at a very large prison, in a tiny little town, in Southern Misery two weeks and 4 days ago. The assistant warden called me on Friday and asked if I would accept the position. Of course, I said YES!!!! :) If I were to say no, then all kinds of bad things could happen, which is to say no one would ever offer it again. Plus, for whatever reason, I really do want to work there. So now everyone at my prison knows, and everyone at that prison knows, and in about two weeks I have to appear for work.

I am really, really, really damn excited to have the promotion. I cannot wait to learn and learn, and learn some more. But, I am also scared. This prison is about two and a half hours from where I currently live, and C is up for promotion here on the 9th of November. I really, really, really want her to get promoted. She deserves it, and she will make a damn fine lieutenant. But...if she gets the job up here, then our cozy little family of five, plus three dogs, is split for a while. Then we have to live in two seperate places until one or the other can transfer (at least 6 months.)

If I stay down there and then someone up here retires, I could lateral back up here, and then we wouldn't have to move the kids. Or she can do a hardship transfer down there in six months. So, needless to say, there are tons upon tons of decisions to be made. But for now... I am FINALLY a Unit Manager!! Yippeeeeeee!! It only took 5 interviews and 1 and 1/2 years of being eligible, and I got it!!

The other scary part??? They will now expect me to supervise people!!! :)

Where did you go?

Let's pretend I went on a wonderful vacation to the Irish Sea. Let's pretend that I haven't spent the last month staring at my computer screen, and knowing that there is stuff that I want to post and just haven't.

I don't know about you all, but I get tired. Tired, overworked, frustrated, etc. Frustrated with all the little things in life that I can't fix. I can't fix many of those little things, so I crawl into a hole and pretend that those little things don't exist. When I am forced to confront them, it just makes me sad.

Sad that I don't know whether my 12 year old still likes monkeys, and sad that unless I call her she won't talk to me. I wonder if she misses me. I wonder if she thinks about me if I don't call. No matter how many people tell me I've done nothing wrong. I didn't hurt her, I cared for her the best I possibly could. That doesn't matter because in my heart I ask that question every day. What could I have possibly done that made her not want to live here anymore?

Did my choice to live my life with my partner push her away? Was it the fact that The Diva and The Fairy Princess have medical issues, and T had a breakdown? Did we not pay enough attention? We all make choices. As mothers, fathers, caretakers we make choices about the lives our children live. Did I decide for her too many times??

There are things I don't regret. I do not regret letting her go. I do not regret the lack of screaming in my house. I do not regret The Princess Fairy being happy. I do not regret the time I spend worrying about her.

I just wish it could have been different.

Welcome to We Are Muslim | We Are Muslim

Welcome to We Are Muslim We Are Muslim: ""


I'd like to throw out a big thanks to Avitable for coming up with this site!

Really, still no equal rights for LGBT????

I was going to write a post about how Don't ask Don't Tell has finally been declared unconstitutional, and how wonderful that is, but then C brought up the fact that we (as a couple, and as individuals) are still not being given equal rights on a daily basis. In fact, she had been thinking about her own blog post, but I asked and she doesn't feel ready, or just won't, or whatever. So here goes, I hope I can do her thoughts justice!

We've always known DADT is unconstitutional. Even when C and I were both in the military, we knew. Neither of us were OUT then, and we both were trying so hard to live in the roles we were born in to. However, now we both know in our hearts the other pieces of our lives that are unconstitutional.

We have no protection as a couple, or as individual citizens under the law in our state. If you look at it and bend the glass a bit, our not being allowed to marry is also a violation of our first amendment rights. We, unlike other Americans, are not allowed the freedom of expression that others enjoy. We would love to freely express the depth of our love together by marrying. I do not look at marriage as a religious contract, but rather a civil contract. After all, we would then be protected at hospitals, when we try to adopt, and on our death beds.

No one would be able to keep her from me if I were dying, and vice versa. Let me tell you, right now that is one of the things that scares me most. If I am gone, no judge will tell her she can keep the two children who still live with us. If she is gone, no one will be able to stop her crazy-ass mother from coming down here to get The Diva.

And yet...we work for the State. We can't hold hands in public (in most places), we can't get married, for God's sake we can't even smoke in a restaraunt!! That last part is meant lightly, but think about it. I often think about the fact that they will legalize marijuana, shortly after they outlaw smoking in public.

We uphold the laws of the State of Misery, we protect the people of this state from those they would all remain seperate from, and yet there is no protection for us. I am not allowed to use the size of our family to qualify for any services whatsoever, because we are not one unit under the law. And yet, when I tried to qualify my children for reduced lunch fees, we were counted as one unit, and suddenly made too much money!! I can't qualify for family status on my benefits at work, and heaven help me, if she were killed while working (or vice versa) they wouldn't give us administrative leave to attend the other's funeral because we are not legally wed. People I know think that I am too serious about this, but I simply ask what if you were suddenly told you couldn't marry because your potential heterosexual partner was of a different race, ethnic group, or religion? I bet you'd take it just as seriously.

So, we keep fighting, I will continue to bring this topic to light at work, and we keep working to protect the citizens of the State Of Misery!!

Feminine or Masculine?

So, C and I were talking the other day about how we were feeling. Both of us have been a little down and out, with K's birthday tomorrow (the child in Texas) and other life events. C said that when she is feeling needy, or like she hates her body, etc. that makes her feel feminine. And so I asked (in my wise verbal judo corrections voice) "Is that a bad thing?" And she said yes. She doesn't like to feel feminine because it makes her feel weak, and that is always bad.

I thought about that for a while because I am not hardly ever masculine. I am dominant in many, many ways. I am sometimes (ok mostly) aggressive, almost always abrupt, and yet I am still rarely masculine. I like that I am feminine, it is the part of me that I most enjoy. For me feminine doesn't mean I always wear makeup (ok, hardly ever) or skirts and heels, it just is who I am.

To me being feminine is the epitomy of who I am, who I most want to be. I want to be able to be soft, kind, fair... all of those things that word makes me think of. I've never viewed it as being weak. I know she wasn't downgrading me for being feminine, after all it is not always about me. But still I'm left wondering, why does feminine to her signal weakness?

Does it mean she has to ask for help, or that she needs me to reassure her that I am still here, still interested in her? I know you all know those people, the ones who in an offhand way will ask "Who is the guy in the relationship?" She is not a guy, thank the Goddess!! She is this wonderfully strong, beautiful, vibrant woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with. But, if I think about her in relation to me, she is kind of masculine. I view her as my protector, she is the only person I am ever submissive with. I love when we go out and she wears the tie or the suspenders with the fedora, and this lovely blue silk shirt, but even then she always wears her hair down. She is not so butch that people would ever mistake her for a man, and I am fairly sure that we get our fair share of weird looks as people question the idea of two femmes being together.

Trust me folks, she is NOT a femme. She would find that laughable, but I have seen her wear eyeliner. I guess my question is, what makes her masculine to my feminine? How did we find our perfect opposite in each other? How does it work out that I had to have someone stronger than myself to keep me sane, and she was right here at the right time? Am I the only one who asks these questions?

Isolationism anyone?

So, anyone who reads my blog knows that my son was diagnosed with bipolar depression this summer. We were at the counselor's office this week, and I was going through the pre-screening with her again, when she asked if anyone ever tested T for autism or asperger's. I told her no, he's never been tested for that, but I've been telling people since he was two that something was wrong.

Not that there is anything 'wrong' per-se with my son. He is a beautiful boy, handsome, intelligent, strong, and kind (for the most part.) Then she went on to ask a whole bunch of questions about whether or not he was able to be soothed as an infant or even as a toddler. Whether he did flapping gestures, etc...

Now, I know that he is bipolar. I feel strongly that that diagnosis is correct, but now I am left with a whole new set of questions. Why did nobody think of this earlier? Why couldn't I get anybody to listen to me when he was 2, 4, 6, 8, 10? Why did it take this long for somebody else to see what I see daily?

The only reason I can see for this is isolationism. I am beginning to blame myself for this. I kept him out of organized sports until this year because I couldn't stand the constant pressure. He was/is supremely emotional. The slightest thing at 6, 8, and 10 made him cry or scream. Even in school, he has been the odd man out. He doesn't make friends easily and he gets picked on frequently. Kids, and teachers, think he is bizarre for the crying fits. For a long time, I didn't look for anyone to talk to about this, because I didn't want anyone to know.

I've been looking for support groups for about a year now. The closest thing I've found is the parents meeting when we were doing the intensive outpatient therapy after his diagnosis. We don't have those meetings anymore, because he is just doing the counseling one-on-one now.

Earlier this week, we had a manic episode. For those that don't know my son personally, a manic episode looks like an extremely pissed-off, rage filled kid. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. This one was new, as it lasted approximately three days. T had a melt-down after practice on Tuesday and screamed at me, and another parent, in public. That hasn't happened in years, mostly because we were never in public together, aside from the grocery store. I told him, after he was calm, that he could not yell at me in public, because he is showing that he doesn't respect me at that moment. He apologized to me, he apologized to the other mom the next day. But all this leads back to isolationalism.

People that don't know T, probably looked at him and thought "why can't that mom control her kid?" My answer: Come live in my shoes for a week, please! Except that I believe I've brought this on myself by not talking to people about it, or even allowing it to be seen.

Please understand, I am not embarassed about my son. I am proud of the improvements he has made. I simply don't want people to judge him, or me, by what they see. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know who to talk to, and I really am tired of living in a box I apparently made all by myself. Any thoughts?

I remember...

*Warning*-This post may be upsetting for some.


I still remember what he looked like. I met him when I was in 6th grade. We moved to North Georgia, and started going to a new church. My parents met a couple that they believed were like them. Both couples worked, had three children, went to church everytime the doors were open. Surely they could be friends. And they were for a while.

The summer of 7th grade, they invited us to their lake house. I don't know if my little sister went with us, I do remember my brother being there. I remember feeling like I was only there to babysit everyone's children. I remember desperately wanting people to like me, after all we weren't from the south, I certainly didn't sound like I was from the south.

One day we were all out on the boat, my Dad, their Dad, and the kids. My Dad was driving the boat, their Dad was in the water trying to teach us how to water ski. For the record, I still don't know how to water ski and I have no interest in learning. I remember getting in the water, I remember him putting his arms around me. Then I remember him putting his hands in between my legs. I remember wondering with all the intelligence of any 13 year old girl, if he was supposed to be doing that. He said he liked me, that I was really pretty and I was very smart.

I remember telling my parents after that weekend that I didn't want to go to their house anymore to babysit their kids. I remember him telling me to stay behind in my sunday school class after everyone else had left. I remember the dress Mama had bought me. It was the late 80's and those drop waisted dresses with the bubble skirts were really popular. My Mom had found one in pink with white dots. It felt like silk, and I never wore it again after he ran his hands down the front of it. Do you know that even if you don't like what someone is doing, and you are scared to death, your body will still react? I hated my body for years for that reaction.

I remember this man was the first to make me feel like my body betrayed me, like I was dirty and bad. He was not the last. FYI...I don't go to counseling, I've never told my parents what he did. It doesn't matter now, it was 21 years ago. If I knew any of you IRL, I probably wouldn't be writing this now. But, this is my safe place, and it's time I let some of this out of my brain.