Artificially Sweetened

Today, I am blogging for all the LGBTQ people who want to have families or to have the families they’ve already got legally recognized. I am blogging…

…for those of us who are estranged from our families of origin because of our sexual orientation. May this year open their hearts  and let them see that loving well and being loved well matters most of all.

…for those of us who struggle to find love. May this year bring you the family of your choice.

…for those of us who long for the presence of grubby fingers and dirty diapers in our lives. May the doors of homophobia, infertility and beauracratic indifference* finally swing open and let us in - and SOON.

…for those of us who kiss boo-boos and wipe noses but are legally ignored as parents. May wisdom and common sense prevail over intolerance and hatred.

…for those of us who grow older living in fear of the financial consequences of an unjust system that won’t allow us to enjoy the extensive federal benefits of marriage. Again, may wisdom and common sense finally prevail over intolerance and hatred.

Today I am blogging for him.

* We learned today that GB’s case was given a previo by the assessor (not sure when) and readmitted to PGN today. What a thoughtful 7-month birthday present from my friends in PGN.

I have a new post up at LesbianFamily.Org.

Her second child was born less than two months ago.

And you idiots think that the only families worth protecting look like hers?

If you haven’t already done so, vote today. And please, vote to protect my family.

If you have a respectful disagreement, I’m willing to hear it. Cowardly anonymous comments will be deleted posthaste.

This hurts so bad.

Not that it happened. I’m thrilled that the good justices of New Jersey, or at least four of them, do not have their heads up their arses.

But how could it happen in New Jersey before it happened in New York? This is a matter of great and grevious shame to me.

All I can say, is that Eliot better keep his promises.

What do you call someone who is teetering on that fine line between acquaintance and friend?

There is this woman, a friend? I will call her Hippie Sunshine, although that is not, believe it or not, her real name. I am sure she would say we are her friends, because she is of that sort of person who takes ownership of everything around her and makes it a reflection of her. I say that and it sounds like I dislike her. Sometimes I do.

But Hippie Sunshine is so well-meaning, it’s hard to dislike her. She’s horrifically insensitive at times, but it’s the kind of insensitivity that reminds me of our fat white cat, who can’t swish his tail without inadvertantly knocking over glasses of water.

And what does she do for a living, this acquaintance friend friendquaintance Hippie Sunshine? Why she teaches multi-cultural education, of course, this labrys wimmin wuving wimmin she.

She is so eager for us to have a child. She thinks we will make great parents. She asks us every time she’s sees us how it’s going. She tells other people without even asking us that we are trying because they are trying too and we should know each other. And she tells us (without asking them) that by the way the friendly mullety lesbians on the other blanket at her picnic are going to start trying to have a baby too.

What do you call someone like that? A faquaintance? I ask Pili.

Oh GOD NO! That sounds too much like fuck buddy, and eww, ewww no no none of that. Says Pili.

So we send her an invitation to our pride bbq and ask if she will kindly pass the invitation along to those other nice mullety lesbians who were at her picnic. She responds: “The other friends you mentioned are X and Y. They are fine * My partner went to the baby shower on Saturday (I was out of town) *- the baby is due in three weeks.”

The BABY IS DUE IN THREE WEEKS. THE BABY, of the no-spring-chicken-mullety-lesbians, who were just starting to try last labor day weekend. The if-you-thought-for-a-minute-
maybe-you-would-realize-this-is-a-bit-of-a-sore-spot-for-us BABY is due in three weeks. Crappity crap crap crap on a hot crap roof. And she sticks this in a email without even the slightest caution, as if we of course knew that her random mullety lesbian friends were pregnant. So I say to Pili that I think Hippie Sunshine really needs to go to a sensitivity class. Which is hilarious, because of course, Hippie Sunshine? Teaches sensitivity classes.

In Other News:

Pili has to order her birth certificate from the town of her birth, because it is locked up in a safe deposit box and her mother has lost the key, and god only knows how long it will take the gentle hippies in the town of her birth to wave sage over the birth records until the stars are aligned correctly. And do I get any credit folks, for having both my birth certificate and my passport safely stored in my Important Documents file? I’m not kidding, it’s filed under I, for Important Documents.

We are having a bbq on Saturday. Pili gets to show off her mad grilling skillz with her new gas grill. Going to pride in the City That Always Sleeps gives me new perspective on the six frickin hour long pride parade in Very Flat Cosmopolitan City, where we bitched about the beer sponsorships and the endless cars full of politicians slowing down the good stuff, i.e. Dykes on Bikes.

In retrospect, those cars full of politicians seem kind of nice. It feels good to know that you’re enough of a voting bloc that politicians feel like they have to show up and sit in the hot sun for six hours in your parade even if they are running for assistant commisioner of public lavatories and couldn’t care less about the gay vote. On second thought, the assistant commisioner of public lavatories… never mind.

So yeah, anyway, not many politicians in the pride parade here. And last year we showed up half an hour late and almost missed the whole thing.

We met with the Social Worker, Mrs. Vaseline Teeth, today. She urged us to be circumspect, because if we went down to Guatemala and were publically affectionate Guatemala could go the way of China. Thanks, Mrs. Vaseline Teeth, for pointing out the obvious. Now if Pili and I were smooching passionately in her office, or even holding hands, I could understand this, but we are sitting with a good three feet of space between us and in fact I am worried that we are too far apart and look like we don’t really love each other. Mrs. Vaseline Teeth annoys the living daylights out of me, but she is reported to Get Things Done, and I don’t know anyone else around here who has an alternative to recommend.

Wait a minute. We met with the social worker. We filled out forms. We’re gonna have a baby! Hooray!

“Marriage is the most fundamental institution of civilization, and it should not be redefined by activist judges.”

It takes a lot to do this to me, but I am simply beyond snark.

Today is blogging for LGBT families day.

Being behind the ball as I usually am, I didn’t realize this until late in the day. If I had, I wouldn’t have posted quite so many random conversations and lobster pictures. Because this is the post I want you to read.

I suspect that for some of the folks who read this blog, lesbian and gay families are not your first priority, or even close to it. Maybe you have gay friends or relatives, and you think they should be treated fairly, but it’s not your number one voting issue. Maybe you wonder why we’re making such a big stink about marriage.

As a person with diabetes, I’m already vulnerable to the vagaries of health insurance coverage. But as a person with diabetes and a lesbian, in a committed relationship, I’m doubly more vulnerable than I would be if I were married to a man. For the purposes of illustration, imagine (sorry, hon) that Pili is a man and we are (as indeed we are) married.

• If her employer offers spousal benefits, I get them, no questions asked. She doesn’t get a line on her w2 listing them as additional income earned, as is the case with domestic partner benefits.
• I wind up in the hospital. She can make medical decisions for me and visit me, no questions asked, no documents needed to be signed.
• I have a child. Or we adopt a child. Her name goes on the birth certificate, no questions asked, no second-parent adoption necessary. We don’t have to worry about whether or not we can travel through states that don’t recognize our second-parent adoption.
• I’m a stay at home mom, raising our family. Something horrible happens to her. I get her social security benefits to allow me to continue to support our family.

None of these apply to us as a married lesbian couple. The fact is that marriage in this country grants substantial fiscal rights and advantages to those who are allowed to partake in it.

Please help me protect our family. Speak up. And tell others why it’s important.

Otherwise known as embryos one & two.

Smoothly transferred into Pili’s womb this afternoon.

In the waiting room afterwards, I fussed with the coffee machine as a pretext whilst shamelessly ogling eyeing another lesbian couple sitting side by side in the oh-so-tasteful mission furniture, gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.

Should I break the sacred waiting room code of silence? This is Small City, and there aren’t that many of us around. On the other hand… look at how lovey-dovey they are. They’re either brand new here or they’re here for a let’s hear the baby’s heartbeat ultrasound. In which case I may go out of my head with jealousy will be very very happy for them.

I finally decided that I had to break the code of silence, if only so that they wouldn’t interpret my one-cup-coffee-machine-fiddling-blatent-staring as a straight woman giving them the hairy eyeball. While it can take a long time to choose between french roast and earl grey, five minutes is probably pushing it, no?

The unpardonable thing? In a fertility clinic, the only decaf option was chamomile. Blech.

So, how long have you guys been coming here?

Oh, this is our first visit. We’re just here for a consultation with Dr. SBS. (oh crap. you do not want to talk to me) How about you?

Well, um, we’ve been here for a while. I’m just waiting for my partner. We actually wound up doing IVF, my eggs, her uterus…

Oh wow! How great. We’re still trying to decide who goes first!

Um, yeah. It’s great if it works. (Pili emerges) Well, good luck to you. See you again, maybe.

I am trying to welcome these embryos with sweetness and light, to convince them that they would like to stay put for a while. I held my hand over Pili’s stomach for a minute and tried to think only cheerful happy smiling family thoughts.

I have absolutely no expectation that this will work, and yet I can’t help hoping that I will be surprised.

I have a phone interview later this week for a job I thought I really wanted.

In preparation, I googled the guy who will be interviewing me.

One of the things that came up was his alumnus of note profile from his undergrad institution. A pentecostal school. In which he talks about being guided by the lord in all that he does.

Am I a coward to think that maybe this is not the right job for me - just another nice jewish lesbian? How will I answer when he asks what brought me to city where I am perpetually underemployed (Pili’s job)? Am I being close-minded to assume that we might not work all that well together?

On first glance, I pass as straight fairly easily. But I have no interest in being closeted. Which is not to say that I announce: “Hi, I’m Art-Sweet and I’m a Jewish Muffm*ncher” the minute we meet. But I’m going to talk about Pili the same way my straight friends talk about their partners. When you ask me what I did this weekend, well, Pili and I went skiing. We had friends over. We rented a movie and spent way too much time petting the cats.

Your honest feedback and advice, please!

A random postscript: Gmail gives you ads based on the content of your email. I get my comments emailed to me. So the ad I saw above my inbox, based on the comments from the last post?

“Fart Spray only $1.79 - Zymetrical.com - Why pay more somewhere else? Qty. disc. Secure online ordering.”

I’m almost tempted. I mean, why pay more somewhere else?

I know from looking at my sitemeter that most of the people who get here are coming via the awesome and all powerful diabetes OC. And I know that that means that, aside from some kind of personal connection to this lovely disease, we might not have a lot in common. We may not share political convictions. We may not share religious convictions. But you’re here. And it’s my blog. So, I hope you’ll take a minute to listen.

Pili and I are married. In front of 100 of our friends and family, with officiants from both of our faith traditions, we pledged to be true to each other. To love each other through thick and thin, rich and poor - healthy and sick (boy, Pili got the short end of that stick!). Oh yes, and to spend $2000 on a second parent adoption so that we can both legally sign permission slips and take our theoretical children to the doctor. And we’re lucky. We live in a state that permits second parent adoption. If you don’t understand why we’re making such a big deal about gay marriage, please read this. Our tax dollars at work, my friends. Our tax dollars at work.