I wish you....

love, and total acceptance from those who love you, of all your weaknesses, foibles, and neuroses. And yours of theirs. I wish you joy in the small things that occur always all around us, even in difficult times. I wish you compassion and kindness in your times of heartache, and I wish that those heartaches bring you deeper compassion and kindness for others. I wish you friends to hold you close when you want to give up and let go.

Thank you for being my friends and for giving me all the things I have wished for you.

A Christmas present for me

Great news. Today we found out that my husband has a fracture in his foot, which is what has been causing his pain and my worry. I couldn't be more delighted (perception really is all relative, isn't it?). So my heart is as light as a helium balloon. No clots, no surgery, no heavy drugs with bad side effects. Just a fractured foot that causes him a lot of pain, hobbles him, and might take up to six months to heal. Yippeee!

(Thanks for all the candles and good thoughts.)

Passing time with the kids: penises, guns, and beer

I'm just waiting these days: waiting for my husband's test results to come in; waiting for the docs to decide what's going on with his foot; waiting for them to decide how to treat it; waiting for generous friends to give me feedback on my book manuscript so I can get to work rewriting it. I've been keeping busy, keeping on the surface of things, trying to make the time pass as pleasantly as possible. So I've been looking over old pictures and notebooks I've kept as the kids grew. Here are some of my favorite kids-say-the-darndest-things moments of 1996.

Jan. 1996
The twins are in a penis stage. They've started drawing figuratively - circle bodies with eyes, nose, mouth, stick arms and legs, and usually a penis. S. showed me her picture today and said, "This is me with a penis." I said, "But S., you don't HAVE a penis. You could draw yourself with a vagina...." To which she replied, "But I want to draw myself with a penis!" Oh that damn Freud.

Jan. 1996
I was gossiping with a friend today about an acquaintance who's a neat freak. I said, "Her house is so CLEAN!"
R. who was nearby said, "And our house is so, so, dirty!"

May 1996
I was sitting with R & S on the sofa and R (R always brings these things up while S just listens and absorbs) said, "Miss D. is my birth mother, right? So what are you?" I answered that I was her "mother by law," which sounded to her like mother-in-law. i tried hard to explain the concept of law and what it had to do with moms and kids and love, but finally I just gave up.

At bed time, as I hugged and kissed R. goodnight, she sighed and said, "Whoever you are, I love you."

August 1996
As I was out walking with R & S up the little commercial area in our neighborhood, I noticed out loud that the local gun shop had been replaced with a hotdog & beer shop. The girls asked if the old store had sold "real guns?"
"Yes, real guns," I said.
R said, "Well that's good, because hotdogs are better than guns."
I agreed. Then she added, "And beer is better than guns."
I agreed again. The S chimed in, "And getting drunk is better than getting killed!"

The bumpy, bumpy road

(From froggyboggler's flickr file.)
Just a quick update. The husband's foot/health problems continue, and continue to worry me. And i got the nicest rejection letter ever from an agent. She said:

"...the plot is very unique and fully imagined, and I love the fact that Dorrie was able to create a loving and unconventional family for herself. I also think you did a really great job of grounding the manuscript in the Castro District – I always love when the setting is so vivid and three-dimensional that it feels almost like a character. I completely admire your imagination, and I can also tell that you have a love for San Francisco and for Asian culture – it informs the narrative and provides a nice sense of familiarity for the reader."

But....

Anyway, what with hubby-related stress topped with publishing-related stress, I probably won't be writing much for a bit. But I did want to let you all know.
xoxo

An old post for a sad day

It's World AIDS day, and, as I often do even without this official marking of our losses, I'm thinking of all the friends I've lost to AIDS. Above is the section of the AIDS quilt that has my friend Micah Sabraw's name on it. He was an early death, and his was one of the first names on the AIDS quilt. But before that, he was small, lithe, and beautiful - with dark eyes and dark curly hair. He had perfect manners- writing thank you notes after any little thing you did for him - and a tender, generous heart. I was a devastated stray straight girl at the shattered end of a poisonous relationship. He took me under his wing, took me to clubs where I could dance my grief away with gorgeous men who would never hurt me. I felt so cossetted and cared for, so safe. I wish that it had been as safe for him. But how could anyone, in those heady days in San Francisco, know what was coming, what was already there? I remember standing with him at the top of Castro Street one evening. He turned to me and said, "Poor thing, you have to worry about getting pregnant when you have sex. I don't have to worry about anything!" He was a gleeful child set free in a candy shop, in love with his amazing luck at being a lovely man in that time and that place.

I like to imagine him, now, as an old married man. Perhaps he finally settled down with that hunky French flight attendant he had the on-again-off-again relationship with. They'd live in Paris (Micah spoke beautiful French), but have a pied-a-terre in San Francisco. We would have drifted, because of geography, into only intermitent touch. But I would have visited him on my recent trip to Paris. He would have had me over to his gorgeous apartment in the Marais, for a coffee, with pastries which he bought at the "best little patisserie in Paris." I would have showed him pictures of my kids. He'd have a little dog. And we'd say things like, "Do you remember that time that silly boy got us into Studio 54 by driving us all up in his daddy's limo and yelling to the bouncer, 'We came in a limo! We came in a limo!" He'd say, "Darling, feminism is great but I'm so glad you finally threw in the towel and dyed your hair! The grey made you look ancient." He'd still look almost exactly the way he did thirty years ago. Me, not so much. But, in the way of old friends, when he saw me, he'd see the young, messed up, lovely girl I was so long ago, and I'd see the young man, off his leash in a world where he was accepted fully for the first time, and full to the brim with the drama and bliss of it all. We'd carry each other in memory through time. Instead, I carry us both, alone. So Micah, this is In Adorium (adoring memorium) to you. I wish we were dancing still. xoxoxo