pride and shoes full of blood

Minneapolis Pride was this weekend. It was surprisingly lovely - on Saturday I joined my father at Loring Park (he was manning the Multiple Sclerosis booth), and he and I walked all around, looking at the booths. He spotted and instantly feel into deep love of the Utilikilt, which I told him not to buy, "because Dad, you can't come to Pride with your gay daughter and go home with a skirt. You just can't. Mom'll kill me." However, I think he's slowly breaking my mother down into accepting the kilts someday presence in the family manor. Funny, considering this is a man who resolutely avoids pinks, salmons, purples, and anything vaguely "girly."

Sunday I volunteered for the Red Door Clinic and lured people in for the candy, and made them stay for the free HIV and syphilis testing. Really, really fun.

That said, aside from all of the fun and pride and condoms and whatnot, my feet declared war against me. ME, of all people. Don't I lovingly rub them nightly with that peppermint foot cream from Bath and Body Works? Don't I gently use my foot brush regularly to keep them clean and pretty? Don't I exclusively buy them Dansko and Born and other expensive shoes?

Yes, yes I do all that, but apparently it's not enough for the little fuckers. My sandals cut so deeply into my feet from walking around on Sunday, I have two angry gashes that require neosporin (or however that's spelled), bandaids, and flip flops (so nothing rubs against the gashes, neosporin, and the bandaids). Really, they look brutal and feel even worse.

I just don't know what to do with my feet anymore. They insist on cutting themselves like teenage girls and filling up their (expensive) shoes with blood. Maybe I should try counseling, or new peppermint lotion.

impossibly charming

I sincerely love my nieces and nephews.

However, because there are SIX of them (three girls, three boys), I'm always anxious before they come over. Frankly, I dread their arrival.

It always gets better once they burst through the door though. The youngest are twin girls, and it's just incredible how aware they are of each other. They're still babies, but they will reach out and hold each other's hand. If I'm standing next to my older brother (their father) holding Twin1 while he's holding Twin2, Twin1 will inevitably reach out and rest her hand on her sister's shoulder, or maybe pat her sister's back. It's so fascinating to see them doing these seemingly learned behaviors like holding hands and patting backs, and realize that it's innate. And admittedly, they are very, very good looking babies (I think being born via C-section and not through the birth canal helped to not squish their heads into weird shapes).

But if they start talking in some whacko twin language, I'm going to be seriously disturbed.

the silence

I work with a lovely, lovely woman. Let's call her Coworker. I like her so much, I even threw her a baby shower (more on that later). The one thing that really confuses me about her, though, is her conversation style. I expect pauses between speakers occasionally, but Coworker just waits for me to speak. All the time. Incessantly. She pauses so much our conversations become The Elizabeth Show, where I just blather on and on and on, make myself laugh, and work out therapy-like things. It's SO odd. I tried pausing once to make her speak when we were on the phone, but the pause went on for so long I just caved. I couldn't handle the expectant silence. Why? What is that all about? What is she waiting for me to say???

Coworker's baby shower: I knit her a simple lavender raglan sweater and a matching cloche-shaped hat in some cheapo superwash stuff. Cute, simple, easy. Now, I expected the ladies at the shower to react with something like, "hey, nice work Elizabeth! Wow, you knit that? Neat!" You know, the normal kind of response to knit gifts.

What I got was nice, but completely scary. One woman pounded on the table with the flat of her hand as she shouted, "EVERYTHING here today you will THROW AWAY, but THAT, THAT YOU WILL KEEP FOREVER." Another woman said in a hushed voice, "I hope my present isn't opened after yours. That is truly magnificent." Um, what? I mean, thanks, but jesus christ, ease up, okay? Coworker told me after the shower, looking at me dead in the eye, "When my daughter is too old for that sweater and hat, I'm going to mount it and frame it so she can see it when she's grown." What? What is wrong with these people? It's nice, I appreciate it, but holy fuck, it's kind of freaking me out. Everyone at work loves me now. Did I infuse that sweater with airborne crack? Apparently so.

The sweater pattern, by the way, can be found here. Please note its utter simplicity. If I had done fair isle, NO, intarsia color work, I have zero doubt someone would have shit their pants. Ew.

The hat is here. Again, so easy.

like the babysitter's club, but different

"I can't come to dinner right now, Mom! I've got my secret club meeting tonight! Don't worry, we're a club that's all about SAFETY, Mom!"

The Globe and Mail has moved their "Safe Sex Club" article into their big money archives, so here's the gist:

Small town Canada: Kids in the "Safe Sex Club" log into their computers, drop trou, and spank spank spank away for their respective safe sex partners.

Wow, back in my day, girls were all embarrassed about changing in front of one another in front of the locker rooms. I'm sure with the advent of the Safe Sex Club, that's all changed, right? Teenage body angst is gone? Yeah, right.

I always suspected the hot jocks and their hot girlfriends did shit like this. Sweet confirmation!

sunday night

On Sunday evenings, I tend to dread the thought of work in the morning. Right now I'm coming up with creative ways to get out of work:

1. I'm sick, "hack hack," i.e. The Classic

Okay, that's about all I have. Really, does one need more than that? I think not.

That said, I know I'll be rolling into the workplace. I need the money.

Although, frankly, I knew girls in college who used Craigslist to hook themselves out. Now if only if women would pay out like the menfolk...

Ehhh... maybe not.

i almost beat up the cardiologist... and that would have been the nicest thing for us all.

So a new, distressing development to all my lovely Graves' Disease stuff is that I'm getting crazy heart palpitations. Again. Now, there's been many Graves' symptoms that have been bothersome post-radiation - like the fatigue, the hair loss, the seemingly unavoidible weight gain. But heart palpitations? I'm sorry, but there are some body processes that should just work, and your heartbeat is definitely one of them. Logically enough, I decided to go to an internist and get this shizit all checked up and out. My mom, who just about knows every doctor in Minneapolis, told me to go to this one clinic. I checked it out, it looked good. She gave me some names. when I called the clinic, of course, those docs were booked until the second coming.

"But you can see Dr. Stevens. He's our on-staff cardiologist," the receptionist said (not his real name).

"Is he a more senior doctor?" I asked. I really wanted to see an old bastard doctor, one who knows what's going on.

"Oh my god! He's definitely senior," she laughed.

In retrospect, that should have bothered me. That should have been ominious. I just took it as a sign I was seeing some old dude. Christ, did I ever.

Dr. Stevens was 45 minutes late, but I was knitting and happily away from work, so I didn't really mind. Well, I did mind, but I really wanted to see someone about my heart. When Old Man River walked in, he was also Mr. Combative. I'm no dumbass. I know what's up with my Graves', my treatment, my body. I became Ms. Combative, and I thought I was doing rather well explaining myself and making myself heard. Apparently he thought so, too, because then he started with the, "You are a VERY well-spoken young lady. A VERY well-spoken young lady." I was sort of suprized and a little embarrassed, so I just said, "Um, thanks."

This is when shit started to get weird. Old Man River then said, "NO! You are a VERY well-spoken young lady. You're a decent person. And you know what? That's hard to come by these days. You're VERY intelligent."

I was definitely weirded out. He was super intense about all of this. I said, "Yeah, thanks. I'll pass it along to my parents." I didn't know what to say.

Then he said, "I'm going to listen to your heart now." He yanked my shirt up, pushed my bra aside, and laid his stethoscope on my heart. I was like, "Okay, old doctor. He's too old to be hitting on me, right?" It didn't feel sexual, it was just... fucking weird. Like, a little warning before you start pulling on my clothes? I usually get more warning from girls before we sleep together.

He listened. I'm sure my face was priceless. He said, "I can't really figure this all out in a 15 minute time slot. I'm going to have to give you a complete exam." I thought, what kind of exam? Why do I feel like he wants to give me a gyno exam, too? We talked a little bit more about my Graves' shit, and he said, "Okay, I'm going to call this in. Are you married? Single? What?" I knew he meant he was going to call in his dictation and that he actually needed my marital status because that's a part of that. So I said, truthfully, "I'm single and I live with my parents." He called his dictation in.

Now maybe it's time to recap some things:
1. When he walked in, I was knitting a baby hat. Very domestic of me, I know.
2. I was wearing a super cute skirt. Very femme of me, I know.
3. We've already established his opinion of me as a "VERY decent, VERY well-spoken, and VERY intelligent young lady."
4. I'm single, and like a good girl, I live with my parents.

I was cruising for what came next.

He got off the phone, looked at me, smiled, and asked, "So, you got a boyfriend?"

Instant ultra-discomfort on my part, "No, I'm not dating anyone."

His smile turned knowing, "But can you cook?"

I almost went ape-shit. I wanted to stab this man. I mean, he doesn't fucking know me! And do I cook? Fuck you, Old Man River!

I smiled sweetly, "Well, actually, I'm a lesbian, so things are a little different for me."

His eyes just about popped out of his fat fucking head.

"ARE YOU SURE?" he asked.

"Are you sure you're a straight white man?" I asked back.

He took a different turn at this, "You know, my niece says she's a.... (hands twitter) ....a lesbian, and I say, why classify yourself like that? Why not just be normal?"

Stabbing him was becoming a better idea by the minute.

I looked at him dead in the eye, and said, "I guess the ONLY thing that ANY of us can do is BE OURSELVES. I can only be myself. Can you understand that?" The "you total fucking moron" at the end of that was implied.

He stood up, walked out of the room, and didn't talk to me for the rest of the appointment.

Fuck you, Old Man. I win. Fuck you.

When I got home that evening, I told my mom, "Yeah, I saw Dr. Stevens today." She almost busted a gut and said, "What?!! That man should be retired. He's about 85-88 years old!"

Yeah. He should be retired.

I'm just glad I stood up for myself, that I didn't just take the shit he dished out. I don't care how fucking old you are, you don't get to treat me like a second-class citizen. And do I cook? Yeah, I eat pieces of shit like you for lunch.

(Billy Madison flashback, "You eat pieces of shit?" Too funny)

Even though the tenor of this post is self-rightous anger, I'm actually laughing as I write this. What an old bastard! I'm glad to have fucked with his head. Ahhh... bigots are so stupid.